QUESTIONS    OF    THE   DAY. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


GIFT  OF" 


Xl3\:bX..  ^-  T^^  ri-.truru/wcL 


Class 


v\ 


■A-^Ly^ 


14 — "  The  Jukes."     A  Study  in  Crime,  Pauperism,  Disease,  and  Heredity. 
By  R.  L.  DuGDALE.     Octavo,  cloth        .         .         .         .         ^     i  00 

16— The  True  Issue.     By  E.  J.  Donnell.     Octavo,  paper 

20— The    Progress    of  the    Working    Classes    in    the 
Century.     By  Robt.  Giffen.     Octavo,  paper 

23 — Social  Economy.     By  J.  E.  Thorold  Rogers.     Octavo 

24— The  History  of  the  Surplus  Revenue  of  1837.     By 

Bourne.     Octavo,  cloth        .         .         .  •    . 


Last    Half 

25 

75 

Edward  G. 

.     I  25 


25— The    American    Caucus    System.      By    George    W.    Lawton 
Octavo,  cloth,  1. 00  ;  paper     .         .         .         .         .         •         ■         5< 
26— The  Science  of  Business.    By  R.  H.  Smith.    Octavo,  cloth  .     i  25 

28— The   Postulates   of  English   Political  Economy.     By  Walter 

Bagehot.     Octavo,  cloth i  00 

30— The  Industrial  Situation.  By  J.  Schoenhof.  Octavo,  cloth,  i  00 
35_Unwise  Laws.  By  Lewis  H.  Blair.  Octavo,  cloth  .  .  i  00 
36— Railway  Practice.     By  E.  Porter  Alexander.     Octavo,  cloth,  75 

37— American   State   Constitutions:    A   Study  of  their  Growth.     By 
Henry  Hitchcock,  LL.D.     Octavo,  cloth  ....         75 

38— The   Inter-State   Commerce  Act :  An  Analysis  of  its  Provisions. 
By  John  R.  Dos  Passos.     Octavo,  cloth        .         .         .         .     i  25 

39_Federal  Taxation  and  State  Expenses  ;  or,   An   Analysis  of  a 
County  Tax-List.     By  W.  H.  Jones.     Octavo,  cloth      .         .100 


"COMMON  SENSE" 

APPLIED  TO 

WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


A  STATEMENT  OF  THE  REASONS  WHICH  JUSTIFY  THE  DEMAND 
TO  EXTEND  THE  SUFFRAGE  TO  WOMEN,  WITH  CON- 
SIDERATION OF  THE  ARGUMENTS  AGAINST  SUCH 
ENFRANCHISEMENT,  AND  WITH  SPECIAL 
REFERENCE  TO  THE  ISSUES  PRE- 
SENTED TO  THE  NEW  YORK 
STATE  CONVENTION 
OF  1894 


BY 


MARY  PUTNAM-JACOBI,  M.D. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


NEW    YORK 
27  W.  Twenty-third  Street 


LONDON 
24  Bedford  Street,  Strand 


TCbe  IRnichcrbocher  ffiress 
1894 


fit)\ 


3*^3, 


Copyright,  1894  '  .     I'' 

By  G.  p.  PUTNAM'S  6^J^^     '  a      JJA 

Entered  at  Statione^'  Hall^  London  C/^ 


Electrotyped,  Printed  and  Bound  by 

Ube  Iknicfeerbocftcr  ipress,  flew  l^orl? 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I. — Introductory i 

II. — Evolution  of  Status  of  Women  since 

1848 16 

III. — Imminence  of  Woman  Suffrage      .  .       60 

IV. — Existing  Political  Situation        .  .      67 

V. — Arguments  of  Opponents        •        •  •       93 

VI. — Alleged  Inexperience  of  Women  .  .126 

VII. — Public  Measures  in  which  Woman  may 

BE  Interested        .....     132 

VIII. — The     American     Discovery. — Webster 

AND  Madison 141 

IX. — The  Existing  Situation  .        .         -151 

Appendix 199 


-i  1  /lono 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/commonsenseappliOOjacorich 


.BRA 

Of  THi 

OF 


"COMMON  SENSE"  APPLIED  TO 
WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


"  Who  the  author  of  this  Production  is,  is  wholly  unnecessary  to 
the  Public,  as  the  object  for  attention  is  the  Doctrine  itself,  not  the 
man.  Yet  it  may  not  be  unnecessary  to  say, — That  he  is  unconnected 
with  any  party,  and  under  no  sort  of  Influence,  public  or  private, 
but  the  influence  of  reason  and  principle." — Common  Sense,  Ad- 
dressed to  the  Inhabitants  of  America,  January  lo,  1776. 

"  Not  he  is  great  who  alters  matter,  but  he  who  alters  my  state  of 
mind. " — Emerson,  The  American  scholar.     Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration. 

THE  celebrated  pamphlet  from  which — not 
without  audacity — we  have  borrowed  our 
title-page,  is  said  to  have  been  an  important 
factor  in  the  formation  of  the  public  opinion,  * 
which  six  months  later,  decided  to  risk  the 
Revolutionary  War.  To-day  is  also  a  moment 
for  the  formation  of  a  public  opinion, — opinion 
on  a  question  not  less  momentous,  upon  issues 
even  more  far-reaching  than  those  involved  in 
the  famous  quarrel  of  our  ancestors  with  their 
mother  country. 

*  "  This  pamphlet,  whose  effect  has  never  been  equalled  in  literary 
history. " —  Works  of  Thomas  Paine,  Moncure  Conway. 


2  **  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

"  The  sun  never  shined  on  a  cause  of  greater  worth. 
'T  is  not  the  affair  of  a  city,  a  country,  a  province,  or  a 
kingdom,  but  of  a  continent  of  at  least  the  eighth  part  of 
the  habitable  globe.  'T  is  not  the  concern  of  a  day,  a 
year,  or  an  age  ;  posterity  are  virtually  involved  in  the 
contest,  and  will  be  more  or  less  affected  even  to  the  end 
of  time,  by  the  proceedings  now." 

"  A  situation  similar  to  the  present  hath  not  happened 
since  the  days  of  Noah  until  now."  * 

To-day,  also,  a  change  is  proposed,  not  as  a 
despairing  revolt  against  a  really  intolerable 
oppression,  or  physical  cruelty,  but  against 
grievances  only  appreciable  by  those  who  have 
already  attained  a  fair  measure  of  indepen- 
dence. To-day,  also,  the  demand  for  a  share  in 
the  sovereignty  of  the  State  is  the  expression, 
on  the  part  of  those  demanding,  of  a  higher 
degree  of  development  than  had  previously 
been  attained,  and  of  an  imperious  impulse 
towards  still  further  expansion,  power,  and 
autonomy. 

"Small  islands  not  capable  of  protecting  themselves 
are  the  proper  objects  for  government  to  take  under  their 
care,  but  there  is  something  absurd  in  supposing  a  conti- 
nent to  be  perpetually  governed  by  an  island.  In  no  in- 
stance has  nature  made  the  satellite  larger  than  the 
primary  planet."  f 

*  Common  Sense ^  pp.  84,  118.  f  Common  Sense,  p.  92. 


Woman  Suffrage.  3 

To-day,  also,  tlie  protest,  the  declaration  of 
independence,  does  not  receive  the  unanimous 
support  of  the  classes  on  whose  behalf  it  is 
made.  There  are  Tories  in  the  midst,  and  plau- 
sible reasons  are  advanced  even  by  women, 
against  the  demand  made  for  them,  to  be 
allowed  to  "  take,  among  the  powers  of  the 
earth,  the  separate  and  equal  place  to  which  the 
laws  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's  God  entitle 
them." 

"  Interested  men  who  are  not  to  be  trusted,  weak  men 
who  cannot  see,  prejudiced  men  who  will  not  see,  and  a 
certain  set  of  moderate  men  who  think  better  of  the 
European  world  than  it  deserves,  are  those  who  espouse 
the  doctrine  of  reconciliation."  * 

And  to-day,  as  in  1776,  the  demand  to  emerge 
into  political  individuality,  from  a  condition  of 
political  non-existence, — the  demand  to  become 
recognized  factors  in  the  political  life  of  the 
State,  implies,  and  also  forebodes  changes  in  the 
social  status  of  those  demanding,  which  is  of 
far  more  consequence  than  any  of  the  special 
reasons  which  may  be  urged  in  support  of  the 
demand. 

"  The  birthday  of  a  new  world  is  at  hand,  and  a  race 
of  men,  perhaps  as  numerous  as  all  Europe  contains,  are 
*  Common  Sense,  p.  90. 


4  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

to  receive  their  portion  of  freedom  from  the  events  of  a 
few  months.  The  reflection  is  awful, — and  in  this  point 
of  view  how  trifling,  how  ridiculous  do  the  little  paltry 
cavillings  of  a  few  weak  and  interested  men  appear,  when 
weighed  against  the  business  of  a  world."  * 

The  modern  position  of  women  was  inaugu- 
rated by  the  Revolution  of  1848.  The  Revolu- 
tion of  1688  overthrew  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  The  Revolution  of  1793 
dissolved  the  doctrine  of  the  necessary  and  law- 
ful supremacy  of  social  classes.  The  Revolution 
of  1848  asserted  the  human  rights  of'  the  indi- 
vidual. In  France  the  masses  obtained  equality 
before  the  law  in  1793;  they  did  hot  obtain 
political  equality  for  men  until  1848.  In  Ger- 
many, the  political  equality,  temporarily  gained, 
was  lost  in  the  reaction,  to  be  reacquired  later, 
so  far  as  universal  suffrage  was  concerned,  with 
the  establishment  of  the  German  Empire. 

In  England,  the  great  Reform  Bill  of  1832, 
had  preceded  '48,  and  softened  its  shock,f  which 
expended  itself  in  the  Chartist  movement,  and 
the  monster  petition  to  Parliament.  Crossing 
the  Atlantic,  the  ebbing  wave  of  the  Revolu- 

*  Common  Sense,  p.  ri8. 

f  Or  perhaps  precipitated,  by  the  extensive  disfranchisements  of 
the  poorer  classes,  which  the  Bill,  though  reforming  "rotten" 
boroughs,  brought  about. 


Woman  Suffrage,  5 

tion  found  the  political  rights  of  men  already 
fairly  secured  ;  the  restrictions  remaining  upon 
universal  manhood  suffrage  slight :  the  force  of 
the  wave  expended  itself  upon  the  legal,  social, 
and  political  disabilities  of  women. 

The  way  had  been  prepared  for  this  special 
direction  of  the  Revolutionary  movement,  in  a 
remarkable  manner.  Already  had  begun  the 
intensification  of  the  anti-slavery  movement, 
which  had  been  initiated  by  the  Quaker  peti- 
tion framed  immediately  after  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution ;  and  the  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  had  been  formed  in  1832. 
Two  women,  Lucretia  Mott  and  Esther  Moore, 
were  among  the  founders  of  this  society,  and 
in  1840  were  sent  as  delegates  to  an  anti- 
slavery  convention  in  England.  With  these, 
went  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  whose  husband 
was  also  a  delegate.  But  the  convention  re- 
fused to  receive  the  female  delegates,  sent  in 
good  faith  by  the  American  members,  on  the 
ground  that  all  public  function  for  women  was 
"  in  defiance  of  God's  ordination." 

Whereupon  William  Lloyd  Garrison  refused 
to  take  any  part  in  the  proceedings,  and  with- 
drew to  a  seat  in  the  galleries,  where  he  re- 
mained during   the  entire  twelve  days  of  the 


6  *'  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

session.  This  was  not  the  least  service  rendered 
by  this  heroic  man  to  the  cause  of  consistency 
and  equal  rights ! 

The  abolitionists  in  America  felt  more 
rebuked  by  the  action  of  their  English  brethren, 
than  fortified  by  Garrison's  protest  against 
English  discourtesy.  They  presently  forbade 
women  to  speak  on  their  platforms,  and  Lucy 
Stone  was  among  the  first  to  be  so  excluded. 
They  followed,  but  only  for  a  few  years,  the 
example  of  the  churches,  and  secured  the  assist- 
ance of  women  in  work,  as  on  the  underground 
railroad,  while  trying  to  exclude  them  from 
publicity,  responsibility,  or  honor.  However, 
after  a  few  years  this  artificial  division  of  labor 
l)roke  down ;  women  did  speak  for  the  slave  in 
public,  but  in  so  doing  found  arrayed  against 
themselves,  not  only  England,  but  the  American 
church.  The  church  was  already  arrayed 
ascainst  abolitionism  in  the  interests  of  "  har- 
mony."  *  The  "  indecent  "  publicity  of  the 
women  abolitionists  was  a  subordinate  incident, 
but  it  would  serve  as  a  handle  for  attack,  and 
was  wielded  manfully.  The  abolitionists  were 
declared   to  have  set  aside  the  laws  of   God 

*"0   harmony!"    M'ill  exclaim  some    future  Madame    Roland; 
"  how  many  hypocrisies  have  been  perpetrated  in  thy  name  !  " 


Woman  Suffrage,  7 

when  they  allowed  women  to  speak  in  public  ; 
and  by  a  pastoral  letter,  the  Congregational 
churches  of  Massachusetts  were  directed  to  de- 
fend themselves  against  heresy,  by  closing  their 
doors  against  the  innovators.  The  Methodists 
denounced  the  Garrisonian  societies  as  "  no- 
government,  no-sabbath,  no-church,  no-bible, 
no-marriage,  women's  rights  societies." 

Yet  at  the  anti-slavery  meetings  no  discussion 
had  ever  taken  place  in  regard  to  women  ;  every 
one  was  entirely  absorbed  in  the  cause  of  the 
slave.  However,  here,  as  often,  it  happened 
that  the  instinct  of  the  conservative  saw  farther 
than  the  conscious  intention  of  the  radical 
The  practical  demonstration  of  the  capacity  of 
women  to  engage  effectively,  nobly,  publicly 
in  such  a  great  national  enterprise  as  that  then 
initiated  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  constituted 
a  far  more  powerful  argument  for  the  general 
emancipation  of  the  sex  than  the  most  elaborate 
philosophical  dissertation  could  have  been. 

However,  so  single-minded  were  these 
women,  so  absorbed  in  the  emancipation  of 
the  slave  from  bondage,  that  they  would 
probably  not  have  thought  of  their  own 
emancipation  from  restrictions,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  unexpectedly  unkind  and   ungenerous 


:i 


8  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

treatment  which  they  received  at  the  hands 
of  their  friends.  For  the  abolitionists  ao^ain 
tried  to  purge  themselves  of  the  contempt  cast 
upon  them  by  the  churches  by  submitting  to 
the  one  criticism  which  did  not  involve  the 
men  of  their  party,  and  for  two  years  the 
voices  of  women  were  silenced.* 

But  who  can  silence  the  voice  of  woman 
when  she  is  determined  to  speak,  and  still  less 
when  she  really  has  something  to  say  ?  It  is  a 
circumstance  at  once  dramatic,  piquant,  and 
almost  comical,  that  the  immediate  motive  for 
the  call  to  the  first  Woman's  Rights  Conven- 
tion was  not  the  pressure  of  the  numerous  per- 
sonal, legal,  and  social  disabilities  which  then 
weighed  so  heavily  upon  women,  but  prohibi- 
tion to  speak,  and  to  speak  on  behalf  of  the 
slave.  This  fact  at  least  furnished  the  electric 
spark  which  fused  together  all  the  many  ten- 
dencies which  had  been  long  smouldering  in 

*  In  the  same  way  the  Methodists  had  forbidden  the  continuance 
of  the  female  preachers,  at  first  allowed.  Arguments  may  be  drawn 
for  the  discouragement  of  female  oratory,  far  more  plausible  than 
those  based  on  a  supposed  but  unrecorded  "  ordinance  of  God." 
Yet  if  women's  orations  have  often  been  disfigured  by  hysteric 
excitability,  or  shallow  sentimentality,  or  ignorant  verbosity,  the 
names  of  Lucy  Stone,  Lucretia  Mott,  Mrs.  Stanton,  Mrs.  Howe, 
and  Mrs  Livermore,  to  mention  no  others,  suffice  to  prove  that  the 
woman  orator  can  exist. 


Woman  Suffrage,  9 

secret.  Perhaps  they  did  not  themselves  know 
that  it  was  because  the  ideas  of  1848  were  in 
the  air, — were  making  the  circuit  of  the  globe, 
— because  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Atlantic 
there  had  been  a  revolution  in  February  and 
an  insurrection  in  June ;  that  in  July,  on  the 
western  side,  in  New  York  State,  at  Seneca 
Falls,  Lucretia  Mott,  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 
and  Susan  B.  Anthony  called  together  the  first 
Woman's  Rights  Convention.  The  assertion  is 
not  bombastic  that  there  also  was  "'  fired  a  shot 
heard  round  the  world  !  " 

"  We  fully  believed,"  observed  Antoinette 
Blackwell  the  other  day,  "  so  soon  as  we  saw 
that  woman's  suffrage  was  right,  every  one 
would  soon  see  the  same  thing,  and  that  in  a 
year  or  two,  at  farthest,  it  would  be  granted." 

With  such  innocence  and  naivete  did  these 
single-hearted  women  come  into  collision  with 
the  entire  organized  system  of  traditions,  beliefs, 
prejudices,  convictions,  habits,  laws,  and  cus- 
toms which  had  hitherto  existed  from  the 
beginning  of  history  down  to  the  year  of  grace, 
1848  !  No  wonder  the  shock  was  great!  The 
marvel  is  that  in  it  everything  was  not  shivered 
to  splinters  ! 

History  had  ceased  to  exist  for  that  American 


lo  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

decade ;  for  to  all  the  living  issues  of  the  day, 
history,  like  the  Church  and  the  State,  seemed 
to  those  in  the  van,  to  be  either  irrelevant  or 
hostile.  To  this  very  day  the  survivors  of  that 
group  of  pioneer  women  retain  an  abstract  w^ay 
of  stating  their  claim  which,  to  modern  ears, 
sounds  somewhat  archaic.  When  we  compare 
the  transparent  simplicity  of  the  arguments  of 
that  time,  with  the  painful  erudition,  the 
elaborate  research  which  European  scholars 
have  accumulated  on  the  subject  of  the  Rights 
of  Women,*  we  seem  to  be  comparing  an  out- 
line drawing  of  Flaxman's,  with  a  thickly  de- 
tailed painting  of  Rubens.  I  even,  in  imagina- 
tion, am  led  to  contrast  the  gentle  savages  of 
Hispaniola  dancing  in  the  garb  of  Eden  on  the 
sea-shorfe,  where  had  just  landed,  in  doublet 
and  ruff,  the  representatives  of  Spanish  gran- 
dees. 

To-day  a  fine  and  certainly  widely  diffused 
scorn  prevails  for  doctrines  of  abstract  Rights 
and  of  claims  based  on  them.  Yet  how  can  a 
demand  for  Rights  ever  be  formulated  except 
abstractly  ?  When  did  such  a  demand  ever 
seem  "  practical  "  or  "  useful "  to  the  class  mo- 

*  See,  for  instance,    Laboulaye's  Memoir  with  this  title,    recom- 
pensed by  the  French  Academy  in  1842. 


Woman  Suffrage,  ii 

> 
nopolizing  the  Rights  demanded  ?    What  human 

conception  is  more  abstract,  more  finely  abstract, 
than  that  of  Eights  ?  /  What  conception  more 
august,  more  mysterious  in  the  power  which  it 
presently  discloses  to  subdue  the  most  brutal 
forces,  to  chain  the  most  material  oppositions,  to 
trample  under  foot  the  most  obvious  utilities  ? 
No  matter  what  its  philosophic  basis,  or  what 
its  historic  evolution,  the  conception  of  Right 
at  any  given  time  dominates,  quite  apart  from 
either  metaphysics  or  history.  No  one  dares  to 
deny  it,  for  the  gist  of  every  issue  and  the 
heart  of  every  conflict  is  the  question :  "  On 
which  side  does  the  Right  lie,  which  both 
sides  claim  ? " 

In  1848  the  party  had  arisen,  small  as  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed,  which  had  acquired  a  pro- 
found distrust  of  all  the  authoritative  dictates 
of  a  society  that  was  then  engaged  in  defending 
the  lawfulness  of  American  slavery.  If  this 
were  the  authorized  conception  of  Rights,  then 
the  judgment  of  society  was  steeped  in  wrong, 
and  an  appeal  must  be  carried  to  a  higher  court. 
The  horrible  mess  of  sophistry,  cant,  and  mean- 
ness with  which  was  being  sustained  the  na- 
tional argument  for  slavery,  inevitably  loosened 
confidence  in  public  opinion.     One  almost  uni- 


12  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

versal  dictum  was  certainly  wrong  :  there  was 
an  almost  indefinite  possibility  that  any  other 
might  be  untrue. 

The  woman's  movement  began,  therefore, 
with  that  for  the  slave,  in  one  common  fact, — 
a  suddenly  awakened  but  profound  distrust  of 
all  authority. 

Soon  further  analogies  appeared.  To  both 
women  and  negroes  were  forbidden  liberty  of 
action,  except  under  such  conditions  as  some 
one  else  should  impose.  To  both  comfort  was 
possible,  on  condition  of  peaceful  submission  to 
such  restrictions  as  another's  will  should  deem 
best.  The  restrictions  were  extremely  narrow 
for  the  slave,  while  a  much  wider  range  was  ac- 
corded the  woman  ;  but  to  neither  was  complete 
self-determination  permitted.  All  negroes  and 
all  white  women  differed  from  white  men,  in 
that  their  liberties  were  restrained  by  a  greater 
number  of  considerations  than  the  one  imposed 
on  men, — that,  namely  of  not  violating  the  lib- 
erty of  any  one  else.  In  this  fundamental  par- 
ticular, therefore,  the  case  of  the  women  and  the 
negroes  was  identical, — it  was  the  details  only 
which  differed.  The  immense  differences  in 
regard  to  practical  details  could  not  change  the 
identity  of  the  fundamental  facts. 


Woman  Suffrage.  13 

Then  the  question  arose  : — Ah  !  mighty  is  the 
age  which  asks  a  question  !— By  what  right  did 
those  who  had  the  power  impose  restrictions  on 
those  who  had  not?  Who  authorized  them? 
The  women's  credentials  had  been  refused. 
Who  had  given  their  credentials  to  those  refus- 
ing ?  Why  should  the  whole  moral  and  physi- 
cal force  of  society  be  enlisted  to  support  their 
monstrous  claim  ?  Why  should  Federal  troops 
be  employed  to  chase  runaway  slaves  in  the 
streets  of  Boston  ?  Why  should  clergymen  in 
the  pulpit  be  engaged  to  prescribe,  with  all  the 
thunders  of  Sinai,  what  the  free  white  women  of 
America  should  or  should  not  do  ? 

It  is  not  a  piece  of  turgid  rhetoric  which  asso- 
ciates these  two  piercing  questions  together.  It 
is  a  simple  historic  fact  that  they  were  so  asso- 
ciated ;  that  they  came  to  the  front  together ; 
that  the  demand  of  women  for  political  rights 
was  made  because  their  personal  liberty  had  been 
assailed — assailed  at  the  moment  that  they  had 
begun  to  work  to  secure  the  personal  liberty  of 
the  slave.  And  in  the  shock  of  the  unex- 
pected assault,  they  had  become  suddenly  aware 
within  what  narrow  bounds  their  own  personal 
liberties  were  really  expected  to  maintain  them- 
selves. 


\ 


14  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

And  so  the  definite,  the  final  conflict  began. 
The  protest  against  political  inequality,  uttered 
at  Seneca  Falls,  fell  back  from  the  buttressed 
fortress  of  existing  political  institutions  like  a 
ball  of  feathers  from  a  wall  of  adamant.  Then 
the  women  began  a  flank  movement.  They  at- 
tacked the  laws,  they  pressed  into  industries, 
they  demanded  education.  Even  before  the 
Woman's  Rights  Convention,  Mrs.  Stanton  had 
been  working  to  secure  independent  property 
rights  for  married  women,  and  after  seven  years' 
struggle  the  end  was  attained.  Then  began  a 
second  struggle  for  personal  rights  in  contracts 
and  business,  and  these  also  were  secured  after 
a  steady  fight  of  twelve  years.  "  They  tell  us 
sometimes,"  said  Mrs.  Stanton  at  the  great  mass- 
meeting  in  New  York  on  the  7th  of  May, 
"  that  if  we  had  only  kept  quiet,  all  these  desir- 
able things  would  have  come  about  of  them- 
selves. I  am  reminded  of  the  Greek  clown  who, 
having  seen  an  archer  bring  down  a  flying  bird, 
remarked,  sagely  :  ^  You  might  have  saved  your 
arrow,  for  the  bird  would  anyway  have  been 
killed  by  the  fall.'  " 

Since  1848  such  changes  have  been  effected 

n  the  personal,  industrial,  legal,  and  educational 

status  of  women,  the  revolution  in  public  opin- 


Woman   Suffrage, 


ion  about  women  has  been  so  enormous,  that  ^ 
there  is  no  century,  nor  five  nor  ten  centuries 
of  all  preceding  European  history,  which  can 
compare  with  it.  Innumerable  claims  have  been 
satisfied  which  forty-six  years  ago  were  abso- 
lutely disallowed.  Innumerable  arguments, 
apparently  as  irrefutable  as  those  of  the  English 
bucolics  frightened  by  Stephenson's  locomotive, 
have  been  refuted  by  Stephenson's  own  method 
of  laying  down  the  railroad  and  letting  the  cars 
run.  Innumerable  solemnities,  based  on  "the 
divinely  ordained  nature  of  things,"  "  on  the 
eternal  justice  "  of  woman's  position  now  and 
forever,  world  without  end,  have  passed  to  the 
limbo  of  many  other  solemnities  which  sink  to 
rise  no  more. 


"  The  part  played  in  this  discussion  by  a  priori  argu- 
ments drawn  from  "  the  nature  of  things  "  and  "  eternal 
justice,"  is  alarming  many  sober-minded  people  as  a  speci- 
men of  the  kind  of  thing  to  which  female  (?)  legislators 
would  treat  us."  * 

Let  us  contrast  the  position  of  women  as  it 
existed  in  industry,  in  law,  and  in  education 
before  1848,  and  as  it  exists  to-day. 

*  Evening  Post,  May  5,  1 894, 


11. 

EVOLUTION   OF   STATUS   OF   WOMEN   SINCE    1848. 

IN  1836  seven  vocations  only  were  open  to 
women.  They  were  allowed  to  be  teach- 
ers, principally  governesses ;  seamstresses,  dress- 
makers, tailors,  milliners,  factory  operatives,  and 
household  servants.  In  1884  women  were 
found  employed  in  354  subdivisions  of  indus- 
tries. In  1892  Carroll  Wright  observes,  "that 
there  are  but  few  avenues  of  remunerative 
employment  which  are  not  now  open  to 
women."  The  United  States  census  of  1880 
records  for  the  entire  country  2,666,000  women 
engaged  in  gainful  occupations.  This  is  about 
one  fifth  the  number  of  men  whose  occupations 
are  similarly  classified.  Owing  to  the  imperfec- 
tion of  the  census  of  1890,  it  is  impossible  to 
form  an  exact  estimate  to-day.  But,  with  the 
increased  population,  and  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  the  increase  of  women  in  industrial  occupa- 
tions has  been  proportionately  much  greater 
than  the  increase  in  the  population,  the  number 

i6 


Woman   Suffrage,  1 7 

of  working  women  to-day  must  be  considerably 
over  three  million. 

"  The  entrance  of  women  into  the  industrial  field  was 
assured,  when,  between  1760  and  1770,  the  factory  system 
of  labor  displaced  the  hand-labor  system."  * 

Three  new  ideas  about  women  have  become 
gradually,  but  irresistibly,  established  by  the 
fact  of  their  widespread  participation  in  modern 
industry. 

1st.  That  women  are  not  universally  sup- 
ported by  men,  but,  in  very  considerable  num- 
bers, support  themselves  all  their  lives  ;  in  still 
larger  numbers  support  themselves  for  many 
years  of  their  lives,  perhaps  the  largest  part ; 
and  also  very  frequently  support  also,  in  whole 
or  in  part,  their  children  or  other  relatives. 
Impossible,  therefore,  to  continue  to  look  upon 
women  as  a  universally  dependent  class.  This, 
indeed,  would  never  have  been  possible  if  the 
true  significance  of  the  work  of  woman  had 
been  recognized,  when  the  textile  and  almost 
all  other  industries  were  carried  on  under  the 
domestic  roof.  But  women  were  then  said  not 
to  contribute  to  production,  but  to  be  supported 
entirely  by  men, — merely  because  these  indi- 

*  Carroll  Wright,  Forum,  July,  1892. 


1 8  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

vidually  furnished  the  raw  material  for  their 
industry ;  and  because  the  work  performed  was 
part  of  the  ordinary  domestic  labor  of  the 
household. 

"  There  is  no  distinction  in  character  between  the  work 
of  the  baker  who  provides  bread  for  a  family,  and  that 
of  a  cook  who  boils  potatoes."  * 

2d.  That  the  work  of  women,  now  so  fre- 
quently and  evidently  non-domestic,  could  no 
longer  be  considered  as  something  done  exclu- 
sively in  the  personal  service  of  father  or  hus- 
band ;  it  had  become  a  recognized  and  important 
factor  in  the  wealth  of  the  State.  From  the 
moment  of  such  recognition  began  to  be  under- 
mined the  theory  which  assumed  that  women 
only  existed  within  their  families,  and  had  no 
direct  relations  with  the  State. 

3d.  That  the  individual  protection  of  the 
man  or  men  in  the  family  was  quite  insufficient 
to  shield  the  woman  industrial  in  the  various 
exigencies  to  which  her  employment  gave  rise. 
If  laws  were  needed  to  defend  the  personal 
rights  of  any  workman,  laws  were  needed  to 
defend  women.  But  further,  it  could  not  fail 
to  be  observed  that  laws  for  the  proper  defence 

*  Marshall,  Principles  of  Economics,  pp.  117-11Q. 


Woman  Suffrage,  19 

of  men  possessed  of  political  rights  were  more 
easily  obtained  and  more  surely  enforced  than 
were  analogous  laws  for  women.  Recent  and 
vivid  experience  had  demonstrated  the  steady 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  working- 
man  which  coincided  with,  and  was  somewhat 
proportioned  to,  his  share  in  political  privilege, 
— his  power  to  make  his  wants  known  with  a 
certain  degree  of  authority.  Impossible  not  to 
inquire  why  similar  improvement  should  not 
follow  the  extension  of  political  rights  to  work- 
ing-women. 

Though  facts  generate  ideas,  they  do  not 
affect  social  movements  until  the  ideas  about 
facts  have  chansred.  From  1760  and  the  Ark- 
Wright  spinning-Jenny,  women,  for  good  or  ill, 
left  their  homes  and  passed  into  the  factories. 
But  until  1848  their  earnings  did  not  belong  to 
themselves,  at  least  not  if  they  were  married, 
which  it  was  their  normal  condition  to  be. 
Hence  the  whole  significance  of  the  industrial 
situation  remained  veiled  until,  from  another 
quarter,  had  been  effected  a  revolution  in  the 
leo:al  status  of  women. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  weight  these  few  pages 
with  even  an  allusion  to  such  elaborate  re- 
searches on  the  property  rights  and  legal  status 


20  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

of  women  as  won  for  Laboulaye  the  recompense 
of  the  French  Academy.  It  suffices  to  recall 
the  well-known  dictum  of  Blackstone  that, 
according  to  the  Common  Law  of  England,  "  the 
personality  of  the  married  woman  [the  femme 
convert]  was  entirely  merged  in  that  of  her 
husband." 

"  From  the  very  beginning  of  history,  woman  appears 
everywhere  in  a  state  of  complete  subordination. 
Law  .  .  .  sanctions  the  subjection  of  woman.  At 
Rome — legislating  for  the  universe — this  tenet  is  formu- 
lated in  the  harshest  terms.  Christianity  does  little  to 
alter  woman's  position  ;  the  Canon  Law  cannot  forgive 
her  the  seduction  of  Adam.  '  Adam  was  beguiled  by 
Eve,  not  Eve  by  Adam.  It  is  just  that  woman  should 
take  as  her  ruler  him  whom  she  incited  to  sin,  that  he 
may  not  fall  a  second  time  through  female  levity.' — 
Decret.  ii.  The  barbarian  society  which  rises  in  the  place 
of  the  Greco-Roman  world,  founded  as  it  was  on  force, 
showed  no  greater  willingness  to  recognize  the  personal- 
ity of  woman  :  her  legal  status  is  here  one  of  perpetual 
tutelage."  * 

Blackstone  claimed  that  the  disabilities  which 
the  wife  lies  under  were  for  the  most  part  in- 
tended for  her  protection  and  benefit,  "  so  great 
a  favorite  is  the  female  sex  with  the  laws  of 
England."  f 

*  Ostrogorski,  Rights  of  Women,  1893.      f  i  Comin.,  4,  p.  445. 


Q 


Woman  Suffrage,  21 

Let  us  enumerate  tlie  proofs  of  such  favorit- 
ism. 

For  the  better  protection  of  the  woman,  the 
husband  was  forbidden  to  chastise  his  wife 
with  a  stick  bigger  than  his  own  thumb. 

For  her  better  support,  all  the  property  of 
the  wife,  real  and  personal,  was  handed  over 
to  the  absolute  control  of  the  husband;  all 
rents,  profits,  and  income  from  lands ;  all  stocks, 
bonds,  plate,  and  furniture ;  the  jewelry  given 
in  girlhood  by  a  mother ;  the  very  silver  mug 
which  had  been  the  gift  of  the  sponsors  in  bap- 
tism. 

For  her  greater  security,  or  that  of  this  same 
property,  a  woman  was  prohibited  from  making 
a  will;  in  many  instances  from  serving  as  a 
witness ;  could  give  no  power  of  attorney ;  make 
no  contract ;  neither  sue  nor  be  sued ;  nor  en- 
gage in  any  business  on  her  own  account. 

For  her  safer  maintenance,  it  was  provided 
that  any  money  she  might  earn  must  pass  to  her 
husband,  who  had  liberty  to  withdraw  her 
deposits  at  the  savings-bank,  even  to  find  means 
with  which  to  purchase  his  liquor,  or  pay  his 
gambling  debts. 

For  the  better  satisfaction  of  her  maternal 
instincts,  the  mother  was  obliged  to  leave  her 


22  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

child  absolutely  within  the  control  of  its  father, 
if  he  chose  to  recognize  it  as  his  own ;  the 
mother  was  only  certainly  able  to  care  for, 
educate,  apprentice,  or  otherwise  dispose  of  her 
child,  if  it  had  been  born  out  of  wedlock,  and 
the  father  had  deserted  it.  Only  the  child  of  a 
slave  followed  the  condition  of  its  mother, — and 
such  child  always  did,  so  that  the  father  was 
freed  from  all  inconvenient  responsibility  for 
his  illegitimate  children,  either  white  or  black. 
And  to  more  securely  hedge  with  respect 
female  honor  and  chastity,  a  father  was  al- 
lowed to  sue  the  seducer  of  his  daughter  for 
the  money  value  of  her  services  to  him  as  a  ser- 
vant. 

It  was  in  the  winter  of  1848 — the  winter  im- 
mediately following   the   Revolution   and   the 
ly     Seneca  Falls  Convention — that  the  first  steps 
I  \  were  taken  in  that  series  of  legislative  enact- 
\/inents  which  has  finally  placed  the  women  of 
the  State  of  New  York  on  a  full  legal  equality 
with  men.     It  is  unnecessary  to  enumerate  the 
successive  steps,  of  which  the  last  was  no  earlier 
than  1862.     The  important  fact  is  that  to-day 
a  married  woman  has  as  complete  control  over 
X    her  own  property  as  \h^femme  sole ;  is  not  liable 
for  her  husband's  debts,  unless  by  her  own  free 


Woman  Suffrage.  23 

will ;  can  administer  and  devise  her  real  estate 
and  personal  belongings;  can  make  contracts 
even  with  her  own  husband;  can  enforce  the 
absence  of  even  ante-nuptial  contracts  with  him ; 
can  sue  and  be  sued ;  can  engage  in  any  busi- 
ness, and  control  her  own  earnings;  is  joint' 
guardian  of  her  child  with  its  father ;  can  for- 
bid such  education,  religious  or  otherwise,  as 
she  disapproves ;  can  forbid  such  apprenticeship 
as  she  deems  unsuitable ;  and,  in  a  word,  has 
become  an  equal  person  in  her  own  family,  and 
joint  ruler  in  her  own  house. 

Comments  upon  these  new  laws  often  seem 
to  imply  that  their  value  lay  in  securing  better 
pecuniary  provision  for  women.  But  such  an 
interpretation  would  be  always  inadequate, 
sometimes  contradictory  to  the  facts,  and  al- 
ways far  below  the  real  dignity  of  their  sig- 
nificance. 

"  The  taking  up  arms  merely  to  enforce  the  repeal  of 
a  pecuniary  law,  seems  as  unwarrantable,  and  is  as  repug- 
nant to  the  feelings,  as  the  taking  up  arms  to  enforce 
obedience  thereto."* 

A  woman,  charged  with  the  responsibility  of 
her  own  estate,  might  indeed  often  fail  to  ad- 

*  Common  Sense,  p.  ii8. 


24  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

minister  it  as  well  as  trustees  would  have  done ; 
or  would  make  a  will  less  reasonable  than  could 
have  been  planned  by  her  husband.  The  prop- 
erty of  heiresses  could  be  secured  by  marriage 
settlements  so  as  to  be  safe  from  the  reckless- 
ness or  untouched  by  the  business  embarrass- 
ments of  husbands.  Indeed  the  security  of  the 
property  was  liable  to  be  in  direct  proportion 
to  its  amount,  as  that  amount  was  often  in  in- 
verse proportion  to  the  energy  and  necessity  of 
the  woman  possessing  it.  The  hardworking 
washerwoman,  driven  to  work  to  save  herself 
and  children  from  starvation,  had  no  security 
for  her  little  earnings;  the  heiress  could  be 
saved  by  the  foresight  of  her  father  from  the 
consequences  of  either  her  husband's  vices  or 
her  own  inexperience.  The  change  which  in- 
creased the  power  of  the  poor  woman,  lessened 
if  anything  the  special  privilege  of  the  rich, 
and  tended  to  equalize  their  respective  condi- 
tions by  throwing  each  woman  on  her  own 
resources  and  own  responsibility.  This  was 
the  great  thing  accomplished:  the  personality 
of  the  woman  was  distinctly  disengaged,  recog- 
nized, and  established  before  the  law  on  equal 
terms  with  that  of  the  man.  For  her  who  had 
been  hitherto  thoroughly  protected,  whose  cir- 


Woman  Suffrage,  25 

cumstances  were  entirely  favorable,  whose 
enervating  education  had  unfitted  her  for  acts 
of  independent  judgment  and  for  positions  of 
grave  responsibility, — ^in  a  word,  for  the  typical 
woman  of  the  pathetic  novel,  the  new  law  may 
be  said  to  have  imposed  a  burden  considerably 
greater  than  that  now  dreaded  by  some  of  the 
opponents  of  equal  suffrage.  But  for  all  others 
it  was  a  boon,  a  conquest,  whose  ideal  effects 
are  only  at  this  moment  beginning  to  be  thor- 
oughly felt  and  apprehended.  The  difference 
between  equal  rights  to  children,  property, 
and  independence,  guaranteed  by  law,  and  priv- 
ileges accorded  by  courtesy,  or  even  affection, 
is  precisely  the  difference  between  the  position 
of  the  freeman  and  the  serf,  and  affects  at  last 
not  only  the  tangible  matters  which  may  or 
may  not  come  into  dispute,  but  the  intangible 
moral  atmosphere  which  surrounds  each  indi- 
vidual during  every  hour  of  his  life. 

"  In  the  present  state  of  America  ...  we  are 
without  .  .  .  any  other  mode  of  power  than  what  is 
founded  on  and  granted  by  courtesy."  * 

I  have  used  the  word  serf  instead  of  slave,  so 
as  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  exaggeration,  in 

*  Common  Sense,  p.  126. 


26  "  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

speaking  of  the  legal  disabilities  of  women, 
which  were  removed  between  1848  and  1862. 

Yet  this  peculiar  status  of  married  women 
really  combined  the  disabilities  of  both  serf  and 
slave.  Like  the  former,  she  did  not  own  land, 
or  any  other  property  ;  she  was  attached  to  it. 
And,  like  the  slave,  she  might  slave  from  dawn 
to  dusk,  yet  have  no  right  to  a  farthing  of  the 
products  of  her  own  labor ;  no  equivalent,  in- 
deed, except  a  claim  for  a  maintenance  whose 
details  should  be  determined  by  a  master.  The 
fact  was  concealed  by  the  social  habits  and  man- 
ners which  had  become  modified,  as  usual,  in 
advance  of  the  law.  But  the  fact  remained,  and 
was  disclosed  as  soon  as  looked  for,  that  in  the 
eye  of  the  law  the  married  white  woman  in  the 
North  was  as  devoid  of  personality  as  the  Afri- 
can slave  in  the  South. 

Thus  a  second  line  of  thought  and  inquiry 
led  straight  to  the  same  startling  conclusion  as 
had  already  been  reached  by  the  abolitionists 
along  a  somewhat  different  route.  A  class  of 
people  who  were  not  allowed  to  be  persons, 
were  found  to  have  existed  on  the  north  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  as  well  as  on  the  south. 
The  first  measure  to  establish  the  personality  of 
the  woman,  coincided  with  the  opening  of  the 
^struggle  for  the  negro,  and  was  carried  largely 


Woman   Suffrage.  27 

by  the  efforts  of  the  same  people  as  were  work- 
ing for  him.  The  final  step  was  taken  by  the 
laws  of  1862,  1878,  1884,  and  1887,  nearly  all 
enacted  long  after  the  passage  of  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  Amendments.  Yet,  in  a  large 
historic  grouping  it  may  be  averred  that  the 
same  epoch  conferred  the  gift  of  personality 
upon  the  married  woman  of  New  York  and 
upon  the  slave  of  South  Carolina. 

This  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  great  reform 
legislation  for  women  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

Thus  again,  not  through  rhetorical  exagger- 
ation, but  through  the  line  of  sequence  of  historic 
fact,  are  we  led  to  find  in  the  political  emancipa- 
tion of  the  negroes  a  substantial  precedent  for  the 
political  emancipation  of  women, — because  justi- 
fied by  the  same  ideal  necessity.  From  many 
points  of  view,  it  certainly  seemed  most  absurd 
to  invite  to  a  share  in  the  Popular  Sovereignty  a 
million  negroes  only  just  emancipated  from  two 
hundred  years  of  bondage, — and  who,  moreover, 
had  not  themselves  dreamed  of  demanding 
more  than  their  personal  liberty,  their  "  forty 
acres  and  a  mule." 

"  The  unpatriotic  remonstrants  are  willing  to  sacrifice 
justice   and   every  principle   of   self-government    to    a 
masterly  inactivity  and  blissful  self -content."  * 
*  Rochester  Herald,  May  4,  1894. 


^ 


28  "  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

Nevertheless  the  heroic  measure  embodied  in 
the  Fifteenth  Amendment  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  order  to  convince  the  former  masters 
that  their  former  chattels  had  really  become 
men.  Possession  of  personal  liberty,  personal 
equality  before  the  law,  would  not  have  sufficed 
to  drive  home  the  conviction. 

When,  turning  from  the  negro,  we  begin  to 
speak  of  the  women,  we  rise  out  of  an  atmosphere 
absolutely  black,  into  one  which  is  only  gray — 
sometimes  a  very  light  gray — or  even  ashes  of 
roses.  Nevertheless,  for  the  women  it  is — as 
for  the  slave  it  would  have  been  true,  that,  in 
the  absence  of  political  right,  legal  emancipation 
has  not  sufficed  to  bring  them  to  a  condition 
of  full  personality  in  the  social  estimate.  The 
very  horror  so  often  expressed,  or  thinly  veiled 
under  more  polite  expression,  at  the  possibility 
that  the  will  of  women,  as  exerted  through  their 
votes,  might  occasionally  prevail,  is  sufficient 
proof  of  this.  Even  American  women  are  not 
felt  to  be  persons  in  the  same  sense  as  the  male 
immigrants  among  the  Hungarians,  Poles,  Rus- 
sian Jews, — not  to  speak  of  Italians,  Germans, 
and  the  masters  of  all  of  us — the  Irish  ! 

"  Let  us  sum  up  South  Dakota.  The  total  vote  was 
70,000,  of  whom  30,000  were  foreigners — Scandinavians, 


Woman   Suffrage,  29 

Swedes,  Norwegians,  Russians, — all  classes.  Of  the 
American-born  men,  24,000  voted  yes  (for  the  woman- 
suffrage  amendment),  and  16,000  voted  no.  But  the 
30,000  foreigners*  vote  was  added  to  the  16,000,  and  that 
made  a  tremendous  majority  against  us."* 

It  remains  to  correct  two  errors  of  interpre- 
tation. 

It  is  often  asserted  that  the  legislation  of 
1848  rectified  certain  grave  "wrongs"  which 
women  had  hitherto  suffered.  Not  a  few  people 
argue,  that,  since  the  "  legal  wrongs  "  of  women 
have  been  so  effectually  remedied  without  the 
suffrage,  suffrage  for  women  is  superfluous,  and 
should,  therefore,  be  neither  asked  nor  accorded. 

But  these  laws  embodied  no  "wrongs"  to 
women,  except  in  so  far  as  it  could  be  considered 
a  wrong  to  deny  her  personality.  The  laws 
which  were  abolished,  had  been  enacted  under 
the  more  or  less  honest  belief  that  a  woman 
could  never  attain  the  measure  of  a  full-grown 
adult  personality  ;  was  permanently  in  the  con- 
dition of  a  child,  and  therefore  really  required 
a  guardian,  protector,  and  champion.  That  the 
guardian  might  profit  by  his  ward,  and  the 
champion  be  only  too  well  protected  by  the 
fortune  of  his  protegee,  was  a  trifling  incident 
easily  overlooked. 

*  Susan  B.  Anthony.     Speech  at  Leavenworth,  May  4,  1894. 


30  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

The  legal  independence  of  unmarried  women 
was  regarded  as  a  real  misfortune,  and  to  be 
made  as  nominal  as  possible  by  various  contriv- 
ances of  trustees  and  other  guardianship.  In 
any  case,  it  was  agreed  to  consider  spinsterhood 
as  an  abnormality  of  small  proportions  and  small 
consequence,  something  like  an  extra  finger  or 
two  on  the  body,  presumably  of  temporary 
duration,  and  never  of  any  social  significance. 

The  theory  of  championship  only  slowly 
faded  away  with  the  recession  of  the  ages  of 
physical  violence,  where  the  need  of  a  cham- 
pion was  plausible ;  or  rather  it  began  to  fade  a 
good  many  centuries  after  this  plausibility  had 
vanished.  It  then  gradually  dawned  on  the 
social  consciousness — or,  more  specifically,  it  was 
driven  into  the  understandings  of  the  New  York 
Legislature  by  the  strenuous  efiforts  of  Mrs. 
Stanton,  Miss  Anthony,  and  their  fellow  suf- 
fragists— that  women  were,  after  all,  persons,  and 
that  the  obliteration  or  merging  of  their  person- 
ality inflicted  on  them  a  wrong,  greater  than 
any  benefit  which  could  accrue  from  entrusting 
the  management  of  their  property  to  more  ex- 
perienced hands  than  their  own. 

By  another  error  of  interpretation,  certain 
laws  which  remain  on    the   Statute   Book,  or 


Woman   Suffrage,  3 1 

whicb  have  been  recently  added,  have  been 
considered  so  peculiarly  favorable  to  v^omen, 
that  they  are  thought  to  prove  a  legislative  ten- 
dency to  grant  special  immunities  to  women  so 
long  as  these  consent  to  remain  unenfranchised. 
The  fear  has  been  expressed,  that  these  '^  im- 
munities "  and  "  privileges  "  would  be  forfeited 
were  the  franchise  conferred.  And  this  fear 
has  actually  been  advanced  as  an  argument — as 
the  basis  of  protest  against  the  equal  suffrage. 

The  laws  cited  are  :  the  dower  right  of  wives 
in  the  real  estate  of  their  husbands;  the  re- 
quirement of  the  wife's  signature  to  deeds  of 
purchase  or  sale  of  real  estate  executed  by  the 
husband,  while  the  wife  is  at  liberty,  unchecked, 
to  dispose  of  her  own  property. 

Those  "dower  rights"  are  founded  on  the  claim 
of  a  wife  to  maintenance  for  herself  and  the 
children  she  has  borne,  to  the  extent  of  secur-- 
ing  a  home  for  them.  Through  the  veto  power 
on  a  sale  vested  in  her,  the  wife  mav,  when 
necessary,  be  enabled  to  guard  and  save  the  in- 
heritance of  her  children.  A  woman's  legal 
claim  for  maintenance  as  a  wife  lies  within  very 
narrow  limits,  and  it  is  just  that  it  should  do  so. 
Only  as  a  mother  can  such  claim  be  preferred 
with   either  justice   or    dignity ;    and  here  it 


32  **  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

should  often  be  far  larger  than  is,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  in  practical  life,  really  admit- 
ted. As  there  is  no  reason  why  a  wife  should 
ever  "  maintain  "  her  husband,  so  there  is  no  rea- 
son now  why  she  should  not  dispose  of  her 
property  as  she  please. 

The  laws  which,  after  long  struggle  and  oc- 
casional repeal,  finally  accorded  to  the  mother 
equal  rights  with  the  father  over  the  child,  have 
a  special  significance  which  we  believe  has  been 
hitherto  overlooked. 

"  In  i860  an  equal  guardianship  over  the  children  was 
accorded  to  husband  and  wife.  But  in  1862  this  law 
was  repealed,  and  a  man's  widow  was  no  longer  allowed 
to  be  ipso  facto  guardian  of  her  own  children.  In  187 1, 
however,  the  Surrogate  was  allowed  to  appoint  guardians, 
as  hitherto  only  the  Supreme  Court  had  been  able  to  do  ; 
and  under  this  law,  the  custody  of  minor  children  is 
commonly  awarded  to  the  mother."  * 

This  group  of  laws,  which  forbids  a  father  to 
educate  or  apprentice  his  child  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  mother,  and  which  gives  to  the 
mother  equal  guardianship  over  the  child  during 
the  life,  and  practically  complete  guardianship 
after  the  death  of  the  father,  is  a  reflex,  most 
unconsciously  to  the  lawgivers,  of  a  great  physio- 

*  Laws  of  the  State  of  New  York  Affecting  Women.  Suffrage 
Leaflets,  Committee  nth  Assembly  District. 


Woman   Suffrage.  33 

logical  discovery.  Until  1827  it  liad  been  always 
supposed  that  the  mother  had  no  essential  share 
in  the  formation  of  the  child's  organism.  It  was 
supposed  that  the  mother's  body  only  furnished 
the  soil  upon  which  the  embryo,  exclusively 
generated  by  the  father,  might  develop ;  that 
her  blood  yielded  nutriment,  but  that  no  essen- 
tial elements  of  the  new  being  were  derived 
from  her.  In  1827  Von  Baer  discovered  the 
ovule,  the  reproductive  cell  of  the  maternal 
organism,  and  demonstrated  that  its  protoplasm 
contributed  at  least  one  half  to  the  tissues  of  the 
embryo.  From  this  moment  was  established 
the  theory  of  equal  maternal  inheiitance  for  the 
child,  and,  as  a  necessary  correlative,  an  equality 
of  control  over  the  child  for  the  mother. 

Thus  does  the  Idea,  born  in  obscurity  and 
solitude,  descend  slowly  from  its  far-off  lonely 
heights,  and  finally  take  possession  of  the  world  ! 

There  is  a  third  group  of  laws,  where  the  al- 
leged "  favoritism  "  is  an  acknowledgment  either 
of  the  inferior  physical  strength  of  women,  or  of 
her  unequal  position  as  compared  with  fellow- 
workers  who  are  allowed  to  defend  their  in- 
terests through  the  ballot.  Under  the  first 
heading  comes,  very  obviously,  the  "  immunity  " 
of  a  woman  from  an  order  of  sheriff  or  officer 


34  ''Common  Sense'''  applied  to 

of  the  peace  to  assist  in  quelling  a  disturbance 
or  in  making  an  arrest ;  from  the  obligation  to 
take  up  arms  in  defence  of  law  and  authority ; 
also  the  limits  placed  on  the  liability  of  arrest 
of  women  for  civil  or  criminal  suits.  The  fac- 
tory laws,  framed  for  the  protection  of  women, 
and  which  so  often  fail  to  do  so,  have  a  triple 
significance.  They  propose  to  defend  the  class 
of  industrials  who  have  no  political  representa- 
tion ;  to  protect  the  sex  incapable  of  physical 
self-assertion ;  and  finally,  and  more  especially, 
to  save  from  ruinous  exhaustion  the  mothers 
who  must  bear  and  rear  for  the  State  thousands 
of  its  citizens.  The  ninety  years'  struggle, 
(beginning  in  England  in  1802),  which  has 
been  needed  to  enact  and  partially  enforce  these 
factory  laws ;  the  stubborn  resistance  which,  in 
New  York  State,  has  been  offered  to  all  pro- 
posals to  submit  to  the  operation  of  such  laws 
tlie  masses  of  female  industrials  outside  of  fac- 
tories, as  in  retail  stores,  and  who  also  need 
such  protection, — all  indicate  the  extreme  diffi- 
culty of  securing  protection  for  any  class  of 
people  who  have  not  either  directly,  by  the 
ballot,  or  indirectly  through  its  strengthening 
educational  influence,  been  put  in  a  position  to 
protect  themselves. 


Woman  Suffrage.  35 

There  is  finally  one  law  about  which  a  great 
deal  has  been  said  in  recent  current  debates, 
which  cannot  be  referred  to  any  of  the  three 
foregoing  classes.  This  is  the  law  obliging  men 
who  cannot  offer  especial  excuse  to  serve  once 
a  year  on  juries.  The  opponents  to  equal  suf- 
frage have  constantly  cited  woman's  present 
exemption  from  this  citizen  duty  as  a  proof  of 
her  favored  position ;  while  the  friends  of  the 
suffrage  have  usually  been  content  to  reply  that 
woman  might  be  made  exempt  by  special  legis? 
lation,  and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  after  some 
trial,  women  had  been  so  exempted  in  Wyoming! ^ 

I  think  this  reply  is  both  feeble  and  fallaS 
cious.  Certainly  if  women  claim  to  exercise 
the  functions  of  sovereignty,  they  must  be  pre- 
pared to  assume  a  fair  share  of  the  public  duties 
of  citizenship.  Precisely  because  they  must  be 
exempted  from  military  and  constable  duty, 
where  they  would  be  of  no  use,  should  women  be 
expected  to  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  ful- 
fil such  functions  as  those  of  jurors,  which 
demand  only  the  minimum  amount  of  physical 
strength,  and  which  appeal  chiefly  to  reason, 
judgment,  and  fidelity.  As  the- court-rooms  are 
habitually  thronged  all  day  with  women  who 
do  nothing  but  idle  in  them,  and  it  has  not  yet 


36  ^^  Common  Se7ise''  applied  to 

been  proposed  to  send  such  women  to  the  sanc- 
tity of  their  own  homes,  by  either  decree  of 
law  or  force  of  police,  some  other  reason  than 
physical  infirmity  must  be  found  to  exclude 
women  from  the  jurors'  box.  The  plausible 
reasons  are  two :  First,  that  women  are  not 
sufficiently  trained  in  the  art  of  reasoning  to 
follow  an  argument,  and  their  minds  have  not 
such  calibre  that  their  judgment  can  be  relied 
upon.  Secondly,  that  it  would  be  indecorous 
and  unseemly  to  shut  up  together  women  and 
men  jurors,  strangers  to  each  other,  coming  from 
different  ranks  of  society,  yet  compelled  for 
hours,  days,  or  even  weeks  to  remain  closely 
associated  together;  talking,  arguing  together, 
trying  to  persuade  each  other,  or  submitting  to 
be  persuaded.  The  vision  of  jury  duty  which 
very  naturally  rises  in  the  mind  at  the  sugges- 
tion that  women  might  be  called  to  engage  in 
it,  concentrates  in  itself  all  the  objection,  in  all 
its  intensity,  that  can  be  raised  or  felt  to  the 
participation  of  women  in  responsible  public 
affairs.  In  this  one  illustration  is  concentrated 
all  objection  based  on  the  immemorable  dis- 
trust of  female  intelligence,  and  all  due  to  the 
immemorable  conventions  of  female  decorum. 
Yet,  precisely  because  these  objections  are  very 


Woman   Suffrage,  3  7 

old,  may  it  be  suspected  that  they  are  beginning 
to  be  somewhat  worn  out. 

For  the  jury,  as  for  the  ballot,  the  level  of  the 
average  qualification  renders  absurd  the  assump- 
tion that  there  are  not  already   thousands  of 
women,  educated  and  clear-headed,  at  least  as 
fitted  for  a  jury  as  the  men  who  are  now  im- 
panelled.     Jury    duty,  properly  prepared  for 
and  honestly  performed,  would  itself  constitute 
a  most  valuable  training  for  women,  intellectu 
ally,  morally,  and  socially.    For  them,  as  for  the^ 
Athenian  people  in  the  days  of  Pericles,  who] 
first  made  the  observation,  the  performance  o 
jury  duty  is  one  of  the  best  methods  of  becom 
ing  practically  acquainted  with  the  laws  of  th( 
State.     It  has  been  shown  that  M^omen  phy 
sicians  were   useful,   because    women   patient^ 
abounded.     Similarly,  if  women  are  now  called 
into  court  as  clients,    witnesses,  accused,  and 
spectators,  it  is  impossible  to  maintain  that  law- 
suits and  contested  rights  do  not  concern  women. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  jury — differing  in  that  from 
the  Athenian — was  simply  a  body  of  witnesses 
to  fact ;  and  women — whose  testimony  in  cer- 
tain asres  and  countries  has  not  been  admitted 
as  legal  evidence — are  now  permitted  to  so  tes- 
tify.    From  this  permission  to  that  of  judging 


38  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

testimony ;  from  the  witness-stand  to  the  jury- 
box,  is,  literally,  but  a  step. 

The  objection  in  regard  to  decorum  is  at  once 
more  subtle  and  more  powerful,  for  a  given 
standard  of  decorum  constitutes  an  all-pervading 
mental  atmosphere,  whose  influence  is  as  diffi- 
cult to  escape  as  to  controvert.  It  can  only  be 
outgrown  as  ideals  of  decorum  become  modi- 
fied, or  as  different  methods  become  devised  in 
order  to  realize  the  same  ideals.  In  this  specific 
problem  of  jurors,  no  matter  what  degree  of 
separation  between  the  male  and  female  mem- 
bers might  be  provided,  some  degree  of  associa- 
tion is  necessitated  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
jurors'  duty,  which  involves  mutual  and  some^ 
times  protracted  and  heated  discussion.  Doubt- 
less the  association  together  of  men  and  women 
in  such  discussion  has  only  become  possible  at 
the  present  day,  when  manners  have  become 
sufficiently  softened,  and  the  habit  of  decorous 
commingling  of  the  sexes  has  been  sufficiently 
well  established.  But,  these  conditions  being 
premised,  as  who  can  doubt,  the  situation  lia% 
become  possible  ;  and  it  is  easy  to  foresee  many 
special  advantages  that  would  soon  acci'ii.*  to 
such  mixed  juries,  where  a  group  of  honest 
men  and  women  were  united  for  the  high  pur 


Woman   Suffrage,  39 

pose  of  securing  justice.  The  admission  to  the 
jury  of  immoral  persons  of  either  sex  could 
only  be  due  to  remissness  in  challenging ;  as  it 
is  already  customary  to  exclude  persons  whose 
character  can  be  called  in  question. 

The  numerous  causes  for  exemption  now  ad- 
mitted for  men  would  be  certainly  paralleled  for 
women,  but  they  would  not  always  be  identicah 
Men  are  now  more  often  excused  for  business ; 
women  would  more  often  be  excused  on  the  plea 
of  ill-health.  Of  course,  the  special  plea  of 
family  cares  with  young  children  would  rule 
out  thousands  of  women  during  a  certain  num- 
ber of  years  of  their  lives.  These  same  women, 
however,  would  often  make  valuable  jurors, 
when  their  nurseries  had  emptied  and  their  chil- 
dren were  grown  up. 

Even  more  conspicuous  and  wide-reaching 
than  the  changes  in  the  industrial  and  legal 
status  of  women,  are  the  changes  which  since 
1848  have  been  effected  in  the  educational  op- 
portunities accessible  to  the  female  sex. 

Within  twenty  years  from  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrims  at  Plymouth,  the  foundation  of  the 
free-school  system  was  laid,  but  not  for  girls. 
For  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  the  girls  had  no 
education  beyond  what  they  might  pick  up  at 


40  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

home  or  by  the  aid  of  a  minister.  In  1771  girls 
were  admitted,  for  the  first  time,  to  the  common 
schools  at  Hartford,  Conn.,  and  there  taught 
reading,  writing,  spelling,  and  the  catechism. 
The  boys  studied  the  first  four  rules  of  arithme- 
tic, but  to  these  mysteries  the  girls  had  no 
access.  When  at  last  they  were  allowed  to 
stiidy  arithmetic,  they  were  limited  to  ad- 
dition, and  forbidden  to  consider  the  other  three 
rules.  In  1790,  at  Newburyport,  a  proposition 
to  provide  schools  for  girls  was  put  aside  with- 
out action  by  the  town.  In  1804,  female  chil- 
dren over  nine  years  of  age  were  allowed  to  at- 
tend school  between  six  and  eight  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  on  Thursday  afternoon.  Not  till  1836 
did  the  school  committee  deem  that  one  female 
grammar  school  should  be  kept  open  through- 
out the  year.  One  taxpayer  objected  to  this 
decision,  and  applied  for  an  injunction,  bringing 
out  Judge  Shaw's  celebrated  opinion  on  that 
point.* 

In  the  law  of  1789,  the  expression  "-  master 
and  mistress  "  recognizes  women  as  teachers  for 

the  first  time.f     Hitherto  women  so  employed 

• 

*  The  above  and  many  following  details  are  taken  from  the  most 
interesting  monograph  by  Mary  Eastman,  in  Woman's  Work  in 
America.     Henry  Holt,  1891. 

f  Significant  date — that  of  the  foundation  of  the  American  Consti- 
tution ! 


Woman   Suffrage,  41 

could  not  legally  collect  their  wages ;  the  re- 
ceipt of  their  dues  depended  upon  the  honor  of 
their  employers. 

**  They  were  without  other  mode  of  power  than  what 
is  founded  on  and  granted  by  courtesy." 

Although  excluded  from  common  schools,  or 
receiving  only  the  scantiest  instructions  in  them, 
girls  began  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury to  be  provided  with  private  academies  and 
seminaries;  and  finally,  in  1821,  Mrs.  Willard 
succeeded  in  establishing  the  famous  Troy  Sem- 
inary, the  first  institution  for  girls  that  ap- 
proached the  level  of  a  high-school. 

In  1825  an  attempt  was  made  to  establish  a 
city  high-school  for  girls  in  Boston,  but  the 
school  w^as  closed  at  the  end  of  a  year,  because 
such  a  large  number  of  girls  entered,  and  stayed 
so  long  that  "  no  funds  of  any  city  could  en- 
dure the  expense."  For  girls,  that  is — for  the 
boys'  English  high-school  had  been  supported 
for  four  years,  and  the  Latin  school  during 
nearly  two  centuries,  out  of  the  public  funds, 
and  without  protest  from  the  citizens. 

In  1852  a  Normal  school  for  girls  was  estab- 
lished in  Massachusetts ;  in  1878  the  girls' Latin 
school;  and  in  1888  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
eight  cities  and  towns  in  the  State  supported 


42  ''^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

high-schools,  most  of  which  were  co-educational. 
The  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary,  the  immediate 
successor  to  that  at  Troy,  was  opened  in  1837 
by  Miss  Lyon,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the 
clergy. 

"You  see  that  the  measure  has  utterly  failed.  Let  this 
page  of  Divine  Providence  be  attentively  considered  in 
relation  to  this  matter  !  "  * 

In  the  West,  Oberlin  College  began  its  work 
in  1833  ;  Antioch  in  1853 ;  and  throughout  the 
Western  States,  the  universities,  founded  upon 
the  land  funds  created  by  the  ordinance  of 
1787,  began  to  admit  women  between  1861  and 
1871 ;  all  organized  since  the  latter  date  have 
started  out  as  co-educational  institutions,  f  In 
New  York  State,  after  the  foundation  of  Ti'oy 
Seminary,  there  was  no  new  institution  until 
.1865,  when  the  Vassar  College  was  opened  at 
Poughkeepsie.  By  1890,  Vassar  had  conferred 
a  degree  upon  eight  hundred  or  nine  hundred 
graduates.  Smith  College  was  founded  at 
Northampton,  Mass.,  in  1868;  Wellesley  in 
1875 ;  Bryn  Mawr,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  1885. 
But  in  1872  women  were  admitted  on  the  same 

*  Cited  by  Miss  Eastman,  loc.  cU. 

f  Woman's  Work  in  America :  Education  in  Western  States. 
May  Wright  Sewall. 


Woman  Suffrage,  43 

terms  with  men  to  the  Cornell  State  University ; 
in  1879  touched  upon  Harvard,  through  the 
intermediary  of  the  "annex";  in  1889  entered 
the  post-graduate  courses  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania ;  and  in  the  same  year,  Barnard 
College  was  formally  opened,  in  close  associa- 
tion with  Columbia.  The  Massachusetts  Insti- 
tute of  Technology  has  received  women  since 
1883  ;  and  women  were  admitted  to  the  post- 
graduate courses  at  Yale  about  ten  years  later. 

In  the  Southern  States,  opportunities  for  first- 
class  university  education  hardly  exist  for  wo- 
men. Yet  there  are  in  the  South  one  hundred 
and  fifty  institutions  holding  the  nominal  grade 
of  college,  which  are  authorized  by  Legislature 
to  confer  degrees  upon  women.  At  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University  of  Baltimore  no  woman 
has  yet  been  admitted  to  the  faculty  of  arts ; 
but,  in  reverse  of  the  usual  order,  the  medical 
school  has  been  thrown  open  to  women,  in  order 
to  be  able  to  utilize  the  munificent  donation* 
made  by  a  woman  on  this  condition,  and  which 
alone  enabled  the  school  to  be  founded. 

Nor  has  the  educational  movement  for  wo- 
men been  confined  J;o  the  United  States.  All 
over   Europe   except   in    Germany,  and,   with 

*  $500,000  given  by  Miss  Garrett. 


44  **  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

capricious  exceptions,  in  Russia,  tlie  universities 
have  been  open  to  women.  In  England  special 
colleges  for  women  have  been  established  at 
Cambridge  and  Oxford,  affording  the  same  in- 
struction and  conferring  equivalent  degrees  to 
those  given  at  the  university  itself .  Since  1872 
four  thousand  women  have  received  degrees 
from  the  University  of  London,  and  everywhere 
that  the  opportunity  has  been  afforded  to  com- 
pete, the  women  have  carried  off,  in  proportion 
to  their  numbers,  a  larger  share  of  honors  than 
men. 

The  professional  education  of  women  is,  for 
the  purpose  of  this  pamphlet,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  the  w^hole,  because  marking  most  dis- 
tinctly a  revolution  in  ideas.  Although  untrue 
in  fact,  it  was  conceivable,  that  even  university 
education  might  be  regarded  as  destined  exclu- 
sively to  embellish  women  as  ladies ;  as  Latin 
had  been  taught  in  England  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  "  finishing  "  a  gentleman. 

Horace  Mann  had  said  in  1836  that  the  se- 
cluded life  to  which  women  were  naturally 
destined,  especially  required  the  resources  of  a 
liberal  education  for  its  emWellishment  and  dis- 
traction. The  enunciation  of  this  truth,  which 
to-day  seems  so  innocent  and  obvious,  was,  how- 


Woman   Suffrage,  45 

ever,  a    radical    innovation    upon    the    views 
hitherto  held. 

"  II  n'est  pas  bien  honnete,  et  pour  beaucoup  de  causes, 
Qu'une  femme  etudie  et  sache  tant  de  choses. 

Nos  peres,  sur  ce  point,  etaient  gens  bien  senses, 
Qui  disaient  qu'une  femme  en  sait  toujours  assez 
Quand  la  capacite  de  son  esprit  se  hausse, 
A  connaitre  un  pourpoint  d'avec  un  haut-de-chausse."  * 

But  when  the  education  received  by  girls, 
began  to  be  turned  to  practical  account,  the 
innovation  became  more  decided. 

Of  the  four  professions  into  which,  so  far, 
women  have  entered  for  the  purpose  of  earning 
their  livings — teaching,  medicine,  law,  and 
journalism, — the  first  was  the  earliest  invaded 
and  has  always,  from  the  beginning,  been  the 
most  thronged.  To  the  initiative  of  two  women 
teachers,  Emma  Willard  and  Mary  Lyon,  had 
been  indeed  due  the  earliest  steps  in  the  move- 
ment to  secure  any  real  education  for  women. 
The  positions  of  governess,  half  nurse  and  half 
companion,  had  been  long  established  in  Europe, 
among  wealthy  families,  and  imported  to  a 
limited  extent  into  this  country.  But  the  sys- 
tematic training  of  women  for  teaching  as  a 

*  Les  Femmes  Savantes,  Act  II.,  Scene  VII. 


46  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

profession,  the  establishment  for  them  of  Nor- 
mal Schools,  their  installation  by  the  thousand 
in  charge  of  the  public  schools  of  the  entire 
country, — this  marked  a  transition  as  great  as 
would  be  effected  by  transforming  a  private 
lacquey  into  a  public  official. 

The  census  of  1880  records  over  100,000 
women  as  teachers,  in  the  public  schools  of 
the  country. 

The  census  of  1890  is  too  imperfect  for  classi- 
fied occupations. 

The  public-school  teachers  are  public  officials 
in  a  double  sense.  They  train  the  children, 
boys  as  well  as  girls,  who  are  to  become  citizens 
of  the  State.  They  are  themselves  marshalled, 
superintended,  and  governed  by  officers  who 
have  been  elected  by  the  voters  of  the  State  at 
regular  occasions  appointed  for  the  exercise  of 
functions  of  sovereignty.  The  more  developed 
becomes  the  science  and  art  of  pedagogy,  the 
more  does  the  profession  of  teaching  become  a 
matter  of  expertise,  and  the  successful  teacher 
a  person  of  trained  and  proved  capacity.  Such 
capacity  may  often  be  intellectually  superior  to 
that  of  the  administrative  capacity  required  in 
the  elected  officials ;  and  is  avowedly  superior 
to  that  of  the  average  voter  who  elects  them. 


Woman  Suffrage.  .47 

Yet  the  female  teachers  have  no  vote.  For  this 
very  reason  they  are  habitually  excluded  from  the 
upper  positions  with  the  larger  salaries,  and  are 
officially  excluded  from  aspiring  to  the  admin- 
istrative positions  only  obtainable  by  election. 

Here  is  a  pyramid  resting  on  its  weakest  part, 
standing  absolutely  topsy-turvy.  Not  only  this 
army  of  teachers,  but  all  other  women,  presum- 
ably attached  by  special  affiliations  to  the  schools, 
and  unquestionably  profoundly  interested  in  the 
children  taught,  are  largely  forbidden  to  exer- 
cise either  supervision  or  control  over  either  the 
instruction,  or  the  fortunes  of  those  who  instruct. 
In  twelve  States  of  the  Union,  the  light  of 
school  suffrage  has,  after  long  controversy,  been 
conceded  to  women.  In  the  State  of  New 
York,  however,  though  permitted  in  some 
localities  to  vote  for  School  Trustees,  women 
have,  by  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
handed  down  in  January,  1894,  been  pro- 
nounced unable  to  vote  for  School  Commis- 
sioner, until  they  shall  have  been  relieved  of 
their  disability  through  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment. 

This  decision  has  precipitated  the  movement 
to  obtain  from  the  constitutional  convention  now 
in  session,  an  amendment  which  shall  rectify 


48  "  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

the  disturbed  balance  of  things,  and  enable  wo- 
men to  vote,  whenever  they  have  a  wish  to  ex- 
press, and  a  legitimate  interest  to  defend ;  an 
amendment  which  may  put  an  end  to  the  con- 
fusion of  ideas  which  engenders  injustice,  and 
to  a  confusion  of  responsibilities  which  invites 
neglect. 

Useless  to  say  with  tentative  conservatism, 
"  To  women  the  child  and  the  training  of  the 
child  and  the  schooling  of  the  child,  and 
therefore,  School  Suffrage."  In  the  immense 
cities  of  Brooklyn  and  New  York,  even  the 
limited  right  to  vote  for  school  trustees  does 
not  exist, — for  the  ward  trustees  are  appointed 
through  local  elections,  and  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation is  nominated  by  the  Mayor.  The  ap- 
propriations for  the  schools,  the  expenditures 
of  these  appropriations,  to  which  taxation  on 
property  owned  by  women  contributes  in  large 
proportion,  are  decided  by  Boards  of  Estimate 
and  other  officials,  with  whose  selection  not  a 
mother  in  these  vast  populations  has  a  word  to 
say. 

Yet  it  is  more  logical  for  the  State  of  New 
York  to  declare  women  unable  to  elect  School 
commissioners  until  they  shall  have  been 
clothed  with  full  rights  of   sovereignty,  than 


Woman  Suffrage.  49 

it  is  for  Massachusetts  to  pronounce  women 
fit  to  vote  for  school  officials  but  unfit  to  vote 
for  any  one  else. 

The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  like  the 
ship-money  levied  in  the  inland  county  of 
Hampshire,  has  served,  we  rejDeat,  to  precipitate 
a  discussion  so  radical,  that  it  will  not  cease 
until  the  irresistible  claims  of  logic  are  satisfied. 
Nor  will  such  satisfaction  be,  as  has  been  as- 
serted, "  too  French  "  in  its  completeness.  It 
will  fully  continue  the  English  march  of 
thought  we  cherish  as  our  own,  which 

"  Broadens  slowly  down  from  precedent  to  precedent." 

The  profession  of  medicine  was  thrown  open 
to  women  when,  in  1849,  the  year  following 
the  Revolution,  and  the  Woman's  Rights  Con 
vention,  and  the  passage  of  the  Married  Wo-' 
man's  Property  Bill,  New  York  State  for  th(  * 
first  time,  at  Geneva,  conferred  a  medicai 
diploma  on  a  woman,  Elizabeth  BlackwelA 
She  was,  or  rather  became,  the  sister-in-law  of 
Lucy  Stone ;  and  the  work  of  these  two  women, 
the  one  in  medicine,  the  other  for  equal  suf- 
frage, constituted  the  two  necessary  halves  of 
one  idea.  If  all  women  were  to  claim  such 
substantial  equality  with  men,  as  was  implied 


50  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

in  equality  of  political  right,  it  was  essential 
that  some  women  should  prove  themselves 
to  be  capable  of  work  which  involved  the  high- 
est intellectual  and  social  responsibilities. 

It  was  an  arduous  task  for  the  women  of 
fifty  years  ago,  starting  from  the  low  level  of 
the  education  which  had  up  to  that  time  been 
alone  accessible  to  them,  to  show  any  capacity, 
or  even  the  dimmest  insight  into  the  great  intel- 
lectual province  of  medicine.  But  the  difficulty 
of  the  task  was  immensely  magnified  by  the 
intense  hostility  aroused  in  the  profession 
against  the  admission  of  women  to  its  ranks. 
The  history  of  this  acrimonious  controversy  is 
that  of  a  pitched  battle,  whose  echoes  have 
hardly  yet  died  away. 

"  So  all  day  long  the  noise  of  battle  rolled, 
Among  the  mountains  by  the  winter  sea." 

"  Those  accustomed  to  value  ideas  according  to  their 
intrinsic  power,  as  shown  by  their  originality  and  fruitful 
result,  should  admit  that  there  was  real  grandeur  in  this 
thought  ;  the  thought  that  the  entire  sex  might  be  lifted 
upon  a  higher  intellectual  plane  by  means  of  a  practical 
work,  for  which  at  the  moment  not  half  a  dozen  people 
in  America  discerned  the  oppportunity."  * 

Nothing   is  more  intrinsically  remote  from 

political  rights  and  interests  than  the  sphere  of 

*  "  Women  in  Medicine,"  WomerCs  Work  in  America^  p.  150. 


Woman   Suffrage.  5 1 

medicine;  yet,  because  political  equality  im- 
plies average  equality  between  the  sexes,  and 
admission  to  an  intellectual  profession  concedes 
the  possibility  of  even  intellectual  superiority 
among  women,  the  arguments  by  which  this 
admission  was  opposed  and  retarded  are  identi- 
cal with  many  of  those  to-day  advanced  against 
woman  suffrage.  It  is  true  that  detailed  argu- 
ment on  a  legitimate  basis  soon  broke  down, 
and  resolutions  were  substituted  which  declared 
the  views  of  the  Supreme  Being  in  regard  to 
female  physicians.  But  such  substitution  is 
paralleled  in  our  time  also.  In  1871,  at  the 
American  Medical  Association,  an  Illinois  doc- 
tor asked  very  solemnly  whether  "  the  time  had 
come,  by  deliberate  action  to  open  the  door  and 
welcome  the  female  portion  of  the  community, 
not  only  into  our  profession,  but  into  all  profes- 
sions. Do  we  desire  this  time  ever  to  come  ? 
Is  there  any  difference  in  the  sexes?  Were 
they  designed  for  any  different  spheres  ?  Are 
we  to  heed  the  law  plainly  imprinted  on  the 
human  race, — or  are  we,  as  a  body,  to  yield  to 
the  popular  breeze  of  the  times,  and  say  it 
must  come,  and  therefore  we  will  do  it?" 
Apparently  that  is  exactly  what  this  august 
body  finally  did  do. 


52  ''Commo7i  Sense''  applied  to 

Therefore  the  friends  of  equal  rights  for 
women  must  not  feel  too  discouraged  when, 
nearly  twenty-five  years  later,  in  a  somewhat 
different  sphere,  another  note  of  warning  was 
raised  with  equal  piety  and  solemnity.  (?) 

"  Another  matter  which  lies  deeply  imbedded  in  the 
entire  Scriptural  record,  is  the  essential  disparity  of  the 
two  sexes.  .  .  .  The  intention  of  Scripture  is  clear 
from  the  method  in  which  it  handles  representatives  of 
the  womanly  sex.  .  .  .  Any  civilization  that  trans- 
forms or  tends  to  transform  a  woman  into  the  female 
duplicate  of  a  man,  is  a  false  civilization.  [Yet]  you 
would  have  no  logical  warrant  for  deciding  that  because 
the  Virgin  Mary  does  not  seem  to  have  turned  over  the 
miraculous  babe  into  the  clumsy  keeping  of  Joseph  in 
order  to  get  opportunity  to  skip  to  the  polls,  therefore 
mothers  of  our  own  era  and  city  are  morally  restrained 
from  oscillating  between  the  crib  and  the  ballot-box."  * 

At  the  present  day  women  are  members  of 
medical  societies  of  the  highest  rank  all  over 
the  United  States  ;  support  three  large  schools 
of  their  own  and  several  lesser  ones ;  are  ad- 
mitted to  the  medical  schools  of  all  the  Western 
State  Universities ;  and  in  the  East  to  the 
school  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
Women  -  have  graduated  from  these  schools  to 

*  Rev,  Dr.  Parkhurst,  sermon  preached  May  13,  1894.       Tribune^ 
May  14th. 


Woman  Suffrage,  53 

the  number  of  several  thousand,  practise  all^ 
over  the  United  States,  study  with  varying, 
degrees  of  freedom  in  hundreds  of  hospitals,  and} 
conduct  seven  of  their  own.  The  legal  status' 
of  women  in  medicine  is  absolutely  the  same  a^ 
that  of  men  ;  they  are  eligible  for  all  State! 
appointments,  fill  official  positions  on  health 
boards,  in  prisons,  and  reformatories,  and — by 
special  legislation  recently  enacted  in  several 
States,  including  New  York — are  specifically 
ordered  for  appointment  in  female  insane 
asylums.  Their  expert  testimony,  already  ac- 
cepted by  life-insurance  companies,  is  recog- 
nized in  law  courts.  And  by  a  special  amend- 
ment to  a  New  York  law  of  1893,  judges  are 
empowered  to  order  the  physical  examinations 
of  female  contestants  by  w^omen  physicians, 
who  are  then  said  to  be  clothed  with  "quasi- 
judicial  functions." 

The  admission  of  women  to  the  profession  of 
law  does  not  indicate  the  attainment  of  any 
higher  intellectual  standard  than  is  implied 
by  their  introduction  into  medicine,  but  it  has 
a  special  significance  of  its  own.  Medicine, 
though  recognized,  employed,  and  to  some 
extent  controlled  by  the  State,  remains  chiefly 
a  matter  of  private,  and  at  most  of  social,  con- 


54  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

cern.  But  it  is  different  with  law.  In  1883 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Italy  decided  that  "  the 
function  of  advocate  constituted  something 
imore  than  a  profession ;  it  was  a  kind  of  public 
and  necessary  office ;  and,  to  admit  women  to 
the  Bar,  was  required  a  formal  test  declaring 
women  capable  of  holding  all  offices  and  all 
ppointments,  both  public  and  civil."  ^ 

In  1888  the  court  at  Brussels  decided  in  the 
ame  way,  "  that  a  woman  could  only  be  an 
dvocate,  if  she  is  capable  of  filling  the  office  of 
judge." 

"  Oh,  wise  young  judge,  how  I  6o  honour  thee  !  " 

"In  conclusion  the  Procureur-General  de- 
clared that  in  the  present  state  of  legislation 
and  opinion,  women  could  neither  hold  the  title 
nor  exercise  the  profession  of  advocate,  and 
that  on  the  day  when  they  were  admitted  to 
the  Bar,  there  would  be  an  end  to  the  indepen- 
dence and  dignity  of  the  Bar."  f 

Notwithstanding  these  recent  and  learned 
opinions  pronounced  by  the  Supreme  Courts  of 
two  great  European  countries,  the  various  States 
of  the  American  Union,  after  a  certain  amount 

*  Rights  of  Women,  Ostrogorski,  1893,  p.  144. 
f  Ostrogorski,  he.  eit.,  p.  146. 


Woman  Suffrage,  55 

of  controversy  over  specific  demands  for  admis- 
sion, have  generally  pronounced  women  eligible 
for  the  profession.  "  When  the  law  courts  re- 
sisted, legislature  intervened  in  favor  of 
women.  Special  laws  authorizing  them  to  prac- 
tise as  advocates  were  adopted  in  the  following 
States:  California  (Constitution),  Illinois  (1881), 
Iowa  (1882),  Massachusetts,  Minnesota  (1881), 
New  York  (1886),  Ohio  (1879),  Wisconsin 
(1878),  Massachusetts  (1882).  Last  in  import- 
ance, though  not  in  order  of  time,  a  federal  law, 
adopted  February  13,  1879,  has  given  women 
access  to  the  Bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States."  * 

In  other  spheres  woman's  practical  work  has 
much  antedated  its  own  official  recognition. 
In  law  the  State  has  gone  faster  in  admitting 
women  to  the  Bar  than  they  in  pressing  forward 
to  come  in.  The  close  association  of  legal  occu- 
pations with  political  rights,  the  intimate  connec- 
tions between  the  law  and  its  administration, 
and  the  political  structure  of  society,  should 
both  explain  and  justify  this  rational  delay. 
Possibly  women  may  always  remain  rari  nantes 
in  this  profession,  to  which  no  such  special  calls 
for  them  exist  as  in  the  profession  of  medi- 

*  Ostrogorski,  loc.  cit,,  p.  159. 


56  ^^ Common   Sense''  applied  to 

cine.  But  there  is  an  intrinsic  absurdity  in  the 
active  practice  of  law  by  women  who  do  not 
possess  the  ballot :  there  is  too  glaring  a  contra- 
diction in  the  proposal  to  admit  women  advo- 
cates to  plead  in  the  same  court-room  whence 
women  jurors  are  excluded.  Italy  and  Bel- 
gium have  been  logical  in  pointing  out  this 
inconsistency.  If  the  United  States  has  over- 
looked it,  we  may  accept  the  fact  as  an  indica- 
tion of  another  fact  of  which  the  judges  of  even 
the  Supreme  Court  seem  to  be  unconscious,  that 
the  day  of  women's  political  enfranchisement  is 
near  at  hand, — is  standing  at  the  door. 

Upon  the  profession  of  journalism  it  is  un- 
necessary to  dwell  at  length.  The  extensive 
admission  of  women  into  this  profession  is  sig- 
nificant, not  to  the  extent  to  which  journalism 
touches  upon  literature,  for  the  point  of  contact 
is  very  slight,  but  to  the  modern  position  of 
the  daily  press  as  a  powerful  factor  in  mould- 
ing public  opinion. 

In  a  society  where  government  is  founded 
upon  and  conducted  by  public  opinion,  in  the 
profession  which  stands  almost  as  closely  allied 
to  this,  as  do  laws  to  political  institutions, 
women  are  admitted — women  throng. 

Their   opportunities   for  rising   are   limited 


Woman  Suffrage,  57 

chiefly  by  their  ability.  Their  ability  is  ener- 
vated, not  only  by  other  causes,  but  by  the 
remoteness  from  actual  affairs  proper  to  an 
unenfranchised,  a  politically  alien  class.  Still,  in 
journalism,  there  the  women  are,  there  they  seem 
destined  to  stay ;  there,  in  small  ways,  so  mul- 
tiple as  almost  to  become  an  equivalent  for 
ways  larger  and  fewer,  they  exercise  a  public 
influence.  How  is  it  possible  much  longer  for 
the  new  right  to  remain  unattended  by  its  co- 
relative  responsibility  ? 

"  The  authority  of  Great  Britain  over  this  country  is  a 
form  of  government  which,  sooner  or  later,  must  have  an 
end."  * 

Government  has  established  special  and  en- 
tirely new  relations  with  women  along  all  the 
lines  of  new  work  above  described.  It  has  pro- 
tected women  operatives  by  factory  laws ;  it  has 
accorded  women  in  business,  rights  in  contracts 
and  personal  rights  hitherto  withheld.  It  has 
enforced  the  admittance  of  women  to  all  public 
institutions  for  education,  from  the  primary 
school  to  the  State  University ;  it  has  entrusted 
public  education  and  the  training  of  citizens 
chiefly  to  women ;  it  has  legalized  the  position 

*  Common  Sense,  p.  84. 


58  ^'Common  Sense''  applied  to 

of  women  in  the  learned  professions  ;  and  it  has 
thrown  open  to  women  a  large  number  of 
official  positions  and  salaried  employments. 
Seven  thousand  women  are  to-day  employed 
in  the  various  administration  offices  at  Washi 
ington,  where,  however,  it  is  deemed  necessar} 
even  by  their  friends,  to  keep  for  them  a  certain 
inferiority  of  position  or  salary,  lest  their  places 
should  be  claimed  by  voters.  This  close  rela 
tion  of  women  to  appointed  official  position 
brings  them  within  a  stone's  throw  of  elected 
official  position, — certainly  within  a  step  oi 
the  position  of  sharing  in  the  election. 

"  The  civil-service  law  practically  went  into  effect  in 
1883.  The  report  for  1884  stated  that  while  the  'law' 
made  no  distinction  on  account  of  sex,  the  *  appointing 
power  *  had  thus  far  used  its  discretion  in  the  selection 
from  the  list  of  eligibles  of  less  than  one-sixth  as  many 
women  as  men,  although  a  larger  proportion  of  female  than 
male  competitors  passed.  .  .  .  In  the  year  1891-92 
the  number  of  women  appointed  in  certain  departments 
showed  a  proportion  of  women  to  men  of  a  little  more 
than  I  in  3,  a  very  decided  gain  for  women.  This  re- 
markable increase  in  the  number  of  women  appointed 
and  promoted  is  mainly  explained  by  the  extension  of  the 
merit  system  at  the  civil-service  examinations  throughout 
the  country  :  a  higher  general  average  of  marks  is  scored 
by  women  than  by  men,  except  in  the  more  difficult 
technical  examinations.     ...    In  the  tabulated  record 


Woman   Suffrage,  5  9 

from  January,  1886,  to  June,  1892,  the  women  were  only 
12  ^  of  the  number  examined,  yet  77  ^  of  them  passed, 
as  against  some  60  ^fL  of  the  men.  The  civil-service  com- 
mission closes  its  report  with  the  remark  that  these 
records  show  when  women  in  the  public  service  have  a 
fair  and  even  chance  with  men,  they  win  their  full  share 
of  the  more  lucrative  and  responsible  positions."  * 
*  Evening  Post,  J%g^, 


III. 


IMMTN-ENCE    OF    W0:MAN    SUFFEAGE. 

THIS  fourfold  strand  of  circumstance,  this 
fourfold  revolution  in  the  industrial, 
legal,  educational,  and  governmental  position 
of  women,  has  entirely  changed  the  existing 
situation  from  that  when  the  argument  for 
equal  suffrage  was  first  outlined.  Then  the 
argument  was  sketched  on  thin  and  rarefied 
air ;  now  it  is  embedded  in  solidities  of  accom- 
plished fact.  Then  it  only  appealed  to  those 
whose  ears  were  attuned  to  the  finer  vibrations 
beyond  the  diapasons  of  ordinary  thought; 
to-day  it  is  enforced  by  the  practical  exigencies 
of  every-day  life.  Then  it  only  based  itself  on 
the  abstract  principles  dear  to  the  elect  souls, — 
among  the  great  and  good  of  all  ages*  ;  to-day 
the  Thought  has  descended  from  the  empyrean, 
it  has  taken  flesh,  it  has  become  incarnate 
among  the  prosaic  possibilities  of  men.     It  was 

*  "  And  for  company  the  great  and  good  of  all  ages." — Emerson 
in  the  A  merican  Scholar. 

60 


Woman  Suffrage,  6i 

a  Thought ;  it  has  become  an  imminent  Fact. 
It  was  a  Right ;  it  has  become  an  Expediency. 
It  was  born  a  heavenly  body  of  abstract  Truth  ; 
it  has  become  an  earthly  body  of  social  and 
political  Institution. 

"  The  propriety  of  woman  suffrage  in  some 
form  or  other  is  no  longer  a  question  of  purely 
speculative   interest.     In   England   for   nearly 
twenty  years  municipal  suffrage  has  been  en- 
joyed by  unmarried  women  who  are  property 
holders.     In  Utah  Territory,  since  its  organiza- 
tion, women  have,  until  recently,  been  entitled 
to  vote,  and  are  now  deprived  of  that  power  by  . 
act  of  Congress  for  reasons  only  of  local  and 
not  of  general  application.     In  Wyoming  Terr 
ritory  and  Washington  Territory  woman   suA 
frage  has  been  an  assured  success,  and  only  the 
constitutionality  and  not  the  wisdom  of  the  lam^^ 
granting  it  has  ever  been  questioned.     In  Kan-T^" 
sas,  with  its  population  of  nearly  one  million,l 
women  have  been  granted   municipal  suffrage 
on  the  same  terms  with  men,  and  at  the  elec- 
tions held  last  spring  voted  in  large  numbers. 
In  New  York  and   Maine   similar   bills   have 
within  the  year  passed  the  Senate,  though  they 
have  been  subsequently  rejected  by  the  House. 
In  our  own  (Massachusetts)  Legislature  a  bill 


62  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

granting  municipal  suffrage  to  women  lias  for 
several  years  been  favorably  reported  from  the 
committee,  and  has  secured  a  large  vote  in 
favor  of  its  passage.  Woman  suffrage,  what- 
ever it  may  have  been  in  the  past,  is  to-day  a/' 
question  of  practical  politics."  * 

It  is  a  practical  question  in  America,  in  Eng-  7 
land,  and  the  English  colonies,  among  which 
New  Zealand  has  just  taken  the  lead  in  grant- 
ing full  suffrage  to  women.  It  is  not  yet  a 
practical  question  in  France,  Germany,  Austria, 
or  the  Latin  States  on  the  Mediterranean. 
Marked  general  inferiority  of  education ;  nu- 
merous restrictions  on  personal  liberty,  embody- 
ing a  rooted  disbelief  in  the  possibility  that 
commingling  of  the  sexes  can  ever  remain  dec- 
orous if  once  allowed  to  be  free ;  the  persist- 
ence of  civil  disabilities  which  in  America,  and 
especially  in  the  State  of  New  York,  would 
appear  like  a  double  anachronism  pertaining  to 
feudalism  or  to  the  Canon  Law ; — all  these  cir- 
cumstances combine  to  restrain  the  movement 
for  political  rights  for  women,  as  yet,  within 
"  the  sphere  of  the  ridiculous."  f  Napoleon 
has  said  :  "  There  is  one  thing  that  is  not  French, 

*  Woman  and  the  Commonwealth;  or,  A  Question  of  Expediency. 
George  Pellew,  Boston,  1888. 
f  Ostrogorski,  loc.  cit. 


Woman   Suffragt: 


and  that  is  that  a  woman  can  do  what  she 

pleases." 

"  Some  timid  attempts  made  in  the  French  Parliament 
to  do  away  with  the  restrictions  on  the  civil  capacity  of 
women  have  come  to  nothing.  A  Bill  to  grant  women 
the  right  to  be  witnesses  to  deeds  and  to  be  guardians, 
though  long  since  adopted  by  one  of  the  two  Chambers, 
is  still  in  abeyance.  Other  Bills, — as  for  example,  pro- 
posals for  doing  away  with  the  prohibition  of  the  quest 
as  to  the  fathership  have  no  chance  of  being  adopted  *  ; 
there  are  too  many  lawyers  in  the  French  Chambers  who 
have  been  brought  up  in  a  superstitious  and  blunt  respect 
for  the  Code  Napoleon."  f 

Notwithstanding  the  depression  of  women's 
civil  rights,  and  their  absolute  exclusion  from 
even  the  dream  of  political  sphere,  the  women 
of  France  engage  more  freely  than  anywhere 
else  in  business  and  industry.  In  France,  also, 
if  anywhere,  is  the  personal  influence  of  women 
over  men,  both  licit  and  illicit,  most  extensive, 
most  openly  acknowledged,  most  often  disas- 
trous. The  restrictions  imposed  upon  women 
by  law,  often  read  like  a  half-despairing  attempt 
on  the  part  of  men,  to  collectively  revenge  tEis 

*  This  famous  law  on  the  Recherchd  de  la  Paternity  is,  neverthe- 
less, the  object  of  constant  witticisms  among  the  French  themselves. 
"  In  this  way,"  it  has  been  said,  "  do  Frenchmen  bind  themselves 
together  to  support  each  other's  children." 

t  Ostrogorski,  loc  cit. 


64  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

influence,  whicli  they  find  themselves  unabje^ 
individually,  to  resist.  The  punishment  is  in- 
flicted at  the  point  where  disaster  arises, — on 
whatever  involves,  directly  or  remotely,  special 
relations  of  sex.  In  regard  to  property,  the 
unmarried  woman  inherits  the  equal  rights  of 
the  Koman  law  rather  than,  as  in  England,  the 
feudal  disabilities  of  daughters  and  sisters. 
But  in  marital  rights,  in  the  claims  of  unmarried 
maternity,  in  everything  pertaining  to  the  per- 
sonal dignity  of  the  individual  woman  which 
might  tend  to  raise  her  to  an  equality  with 
man — here  the  law  is  pitiless  and  society  cruel. 
Strange,  therefore,  in  view  of  these  obvious 
and  well-known  facts  to  hear  an  American 
writer  denounce  the  extension  of  political  rights 
to  women,  lest,  in  the  ardor  of  political  strife, 
women  should  appeal  to  "  the  potency  of  femi- 
nine charms,  aided  by  feminine  arts."  The 
woman  "  inside  politics  "  will  not  fail  to  make 
use  of  an  influence  so  subtile  and  strong,  and 
of  which  the  management  is  peculiarly  suited 
t(T  her  talents.  When  "  woman  is  fairly  ^  in- 
side politics,'  the  sensation  press  will  reap  a 
harvest  of  scandals  more  lucrative  to  itself  than 
profitable  to  public  morals."  * 

*  Francis  Parkman,  Some  of  the  Reasons  against  Woman  Suffrage. 


Woman  Suffrage.  65 

If  experience  can  prove  anything,  it  proves 
tliBt  the  danger  of  illicit  sex  influences  is,  and 
always  has  been,  in  inverse  proportion  to  the 
degree  to  which  women  approximated  to  equal- 
ity with  men,  in  social  dignity  and  in  opportu- 
nity for  public  responsibility.  The  women  of 
the  nation,  or  of  the  class,  whose  range  of 
thought  and  sphere  of  action  is  most  nearly 
reduced  within  the  limits  of  sex  relation,  are 
liable  to  become  dangerous  precisely  in  propor- 
tion to  the  degree  of  such  restriction.  To  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  seems  to  have  been  especially 
committed  the  mission  of  securing  and  develop- 
ing political  freedom  among  men.  Inadequate, 
defective  in  many  other  spheres,  in  this  it  has 
been  invariably  foremost  and  easily  supreme. 
Their  women  cannot  fail  to  share,  at  least  to  some 
extent,  in  the  inherited  instinct  of  the  race  and 
in  its  especial  and  accumulated  capacity.  It  is 
among  the  nations  of  this  race  and  its  Scandi- 
navian kindred  that  women  have  been  and  are 
most  free,  and  have  enjoyed  the  most  many- 
sided  development.  The  edict  of  the  second 
Brumaire,  which  dissolved  the  female  clubs  of 
Paris,  and  sent  hysteric  termagants  packing  to 
their  homes,  contains  no  more  forecast  for  the 
political   possibilities   of  Anglo-Saxon  women, 


66  Woman  Suffrage, 

than  do  the  masculine  hysterics  of  the  entire 
French  Revolution  forebode  anything  of  the 
political  future  of  England  or  America.  "  Bon 
chien  ehasse  de  race." 


IV. 


EISE  OF   CAPACITY   OF  WOMEN,  FALL  OF   POLITICAL 
DIGIQTY   OF   MEN. 

AS  in  a  mass  of  water  into  whicli  a  warm 
current  is  let  in  below  and  slowly  rises, 
a  cold  and  surface  current  as  steadily  descends  ; 
so,  during  the  fateful  fifty  years  whose  history 
in  regard  to  women  we  have  briefly  indicated, 
double  currents  have  been  setting — one  upwards 
and  the  other  down.  While  the  capacity  of 
women  has  been  rising,  the  political  dignity  of 
men  has  been  falling,  year  by  year. 

Small  need  to  recapitulate  the  successive 
stages  of  this  fall.  Every  one  knows  how  the 
franchise  of  the  antique  republics,  at  last  ex- 
tended to  all  the  male  inhabitants  of  the  com- 
monwealth except  the  slaves,  was  practically 
annihilated  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  how  Charlemagne,  late  in 
the  ninth  century,  sought  to  recall  the  extinct 
breath  of  antique  liberty  by  initiating  repre- 
sentative assemblies.     Representation  grafted  a 

67 


68  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

fertile  modern  idea  upon  the  direct  popular 
franchise,  which  alone  was  known  to  antiquity. 

In  all  Anglo-Saxon  communities,  whether  in 
their  Germanic  homes  or  in  England,  self- 
government  appears  at  the  very  dawn  of  his- 
tory. Among  the  Teutons,  the  affairs  of  the 
"mark-moot,"  the  "hundred,"  and  the  state 
assembly  were  conducted  by  all  the  freemen  of 
the  tribe.  In  the  deliberation  of  the  assembled 
people,  every  man  had  an  equal  voice ;  and  it 
was  the  custom  for  all  to  appear  fully  armed.  * 
After  the  Saxon  conquest  of  Britain,  the  primi- 
tive Teutonic  village  community  represented  a 
settlement  made  up  of  eorls  or  nobles,  ceorls  or 
simple  freemen,  landless  men  or  laets,  and 
finally  slaves.  The  two  first  classes  alone  pos- 
sessed land,  and  in  virtue  of  that  possession  were 
alone  entitled  to  political  rights.  In  the  "  tun- 
moot,"  or  primitive  township,  which  elected  its 
own  officers  and  provided  for  the  representa- 
tion of  its  interests  in  the  courts  of  the  hundred 
and  the  shire,  appears  the  earliest  English  form 
of  the  representative  principle. 

From  the  eorls  and  ceorls  developed  the  en- 
tire body  of  English  freemen — on  the  one  hand 
the  nobility,  the  thanes ;  on  the  other  the  yeo- 

*  Tacitus.  Germania. 


Woman  Suffrage,  69 

manry  and  untitled  but  land-owning  common- 
ers. All  the  political  life  of  England  has  been 
carried  on  by  these  two  classes,  alone  articulate 
in  history,  and  so  much  so  that  it  is  easy  to  sup- 
pose that  no  other  class  existed,  and  that  politi- 
cal rights  were  universal.  But  it  is  estimated 
that  at  the  time  of  the  Norman  Conquest  two 
thirds  of  the  people  of  England  belonged  to  the 
unrepresented  class  of  serfs  and  slaves. 

"  The  runaway  slave  could  be  flogged,  or,  //  a  womatty 
burned  to  death."  * 

All  women  were  similarly  deprived  either  of 
the  right  to  assemble  in  the  primary  caucus  or 
town-meetings,  or  of  a  voice  in  the  selection  of 
representatives  for  the  shire.  But  if  in  this 
political  privation  they  shared  the  destiny  of  the 
"  unfree,"  of  the  laets  and  slaves,  and  of  the 
debtors,  criminals,  foreigners,  captives  and  pris- 
oners of  war,  by  which  these  luckless  classes 
were  constantly  being  recruited,  the  women  of 
the  higher  classes  at  least  were  partially  com- 
pensated by  sharing  the  special  social  considera- 
tion accorded  to  the  men  of  their  own  order. 
What  is  of  more  importance  for  our  present 
purpose,  the  idea  that  women  could  share  any 

*  Green,   Short  History  of  the  English  People,  vol.  i.,  p.  28. 


70  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

other  consideration  had  as  yet  occurred  to  no- 
body. Into  a  meeting  of  armed  men,  it  would 
have  seemed  absurd  for  women  to  intrude ;  and 
the  questions  raised  at  these  primitive  assemblies 
were  too  simply  and  exclusively  connected  with 
the  "  provision  and  defence  "  of  the  community 
to  suggest  any  advantage  to  be  derived  from  the 
counsels  of  women. 

When  the  general  assembly  of  the  tribe  had 
shrunk  to  the  aristocratic  witenagemot  of  the 
heptarchy — the  selected  councillors  of  the  king, 
the  germ  of  the  future  House  of  Lords  ;  when 
under  Henry  II.  the  National  Council,  prothal- 
tus  of  the  House  of  Commons,  was  definitely 
organized,  and  summons  issued  regularly  to 
archbishops,  bishops,  abbots,  priors,  earls, 
barons,  knights,  and  freeholders* — women  were 
still  excluded,  for  the  reason  that  they  had 
never  before  been  admitted.  At  this  period, 
by  the  thirteenth  century,  and  thence  onwards, 
society  had  become  sufficiently  complex,  suf- 
ficiently removed  from  the  original  nucleus  of 
exclusive  concern  for  ^'  provision  and  defence," 
to  have  furnished  many  of  the  intrinsic  reasons 
for   woman  suffrage  which  exist  to-day.     But 

*  Origin  and  Growth  cf  English  Constitution,   Hannis  Taylor, 
1889,  p.  289. 


Woman  Suffrage,  71 

memory  of  the  primitive  past  still  dominated 
the  actual  time:  the  "dead  man's  mailed 
hand  "  here,  as  in  so  many  other  directions,  still 
weighed  heavily  enough  to  control  the  situation. 

The  evolution  of  the  situation  illustrated  the 
proverb  :  who  goes  not  forward,  goes  back. 
Women  did  not  only  fail  to  participate  in  the 
growing  rights  of  national  representation,  but 
they  lost  the  feudal  rights  of  individual  petty 
sovereignty,  which  many  women  in  the  upper 
classes  had  formerly  possessed. 

"  The  condition  of  the  landed  estate  predomi- 
nated over  the  condition  of  the  person,  so  that 
the  woman  who  held  the  fief  had  all  the  privi- 
leges of  the  noble,  vassal,  or  rather  all  the 
rights  of  sovereignty :  right  to  raise  troops,  coin 
money,  administer  civil  and  criminal  justice. 
Her  right  in  these  respects  was  as  absolute  as 
that  of  men.  But  these  great  rights  of  noble 
women  were  gradually  extinguished  during  the 
fourteenth  century."  * 

In  characteristic  agreement  with  the  method 
of  dealing  with  the  rights  of  women  which  has 
generally  prevailed,  one  right  was  saved  for 
them  in  the  midst  of  this  general  lapse :  in  de- 

*  Laboulaye,  Recherches  sur  la    Condition  Civil  et  Politique  des 
Femmes^ — Metfioir  Couronn^,  1842,  p.  442. 


72  "  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

fault  of  male  heirs,  baronies  were  allowed  to 
descend  to  baronial  heiresses,  "  who,  although 
they  could  not  themselves  sit  in  the  king's  coun- 
cil, conveyed  to  their  husbands  the  presumptive 
right  to  receive  his  summons."  * 

''  The  husbands  even  continued  to  sit  after  the  death 
of  their  wives  as  tenants  by  the  curtesy."  f 

This  custom,  like  a  fashion  designed  for 
velvet,  which  reproduces  itself  in  fustian  and 
calico,  subsequently  extended  from  baronial 
fiefs  to  the  property  of  commoners,  so  that  every 
husband,  though  he  might  not  sit  in  the  king's 
council,  could  still  be  "  tenant  by  curtesy "  of 
the  inheritance  of  his  wife. 

During  this  same  thirteenth  century,  the 
national  assembly  assumed  a  new  type :  that 
of  the  "  estate  system,"  in  which  three  classes 
or  orders  of  society,  definitely  established  as 
clergy,  baronage,  and  commons,  appeared  in 
person  or  by  representatives.  From  that  mo- 
ment disappeared  the  last  chance,  had  it  ever 
existed,  for  women  to  appear  in  such  assemblies, 
or  to  have  a  voice  in  choosing  representatives  to 
them.  The  Assembly  was  intended  to  repre- 
sent not  individuals,  but  orders,  estates  ;  and  it 

*  Taylor,  loc.  cit.,  p.  436.  f  Hallam,  vol.  iii.,  p.  119. 


Woman  Suffrage,  73 

was  plausible  to  assume  that  women  were  ade- 
quately represented  by  the  men  of  tlieir  own 
order  ;  or,  when  they  belonged  to  unrepresented 
classes,  that  women  should  share  the  political 
exclusion  of  their  men.  This  theory  dominated 
the  entire  system  of  English  political  thought 
for  six  centuries,  even  beyond  the  moment  of  the 
great  Reform  Bill  of  1832.  For  that  bill  was 
not  planned  to  secure  wider  individual  repre- 
sentation— a  plan  which  could  hardly  have  been 
practically  devised  previous  to  the  Revolution 
of  1848.  The  reform  was  simply  intended  to 
rectify  abuses  occurring  in  borough  and  other 
class  representation,  abuses  which  had  grown 
up,  not  through  perversions  of  principle,  but 
through  lapses  of  situation  and  changes  of  fact. 
Before  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  Parlia- 
ment touched  its  first  culminating  point,  women 
had  completely  disappeared  below  the  horizon 
of  public  life.  Coincidently,  soon  after  this  great 
epoch,  the  liberties  and  prosperity  of  England 
began  to  decline,  and  the  condition  of  the  people 
to  enter  upon  that  insidious  process  of  deteriora- 
tion which  was  not  to  be  arrested  for  more  than 
two  centuries.  When  the  lowest  point  of  mate- 
rial and  political  degradation,  for  the  mass  of  the 
people,  had  been  reached  at  the  beginning  of 


74  **  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

the  eighteenth  century,  the  reaction  set  in ;  and 
by  1848,  not  only  popular,  but  universal  suffrage 
had  been  established  in  France  and  in  the 
United  States.  Then  came  the  civil  war,  and 
at  a  bound,  with  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen,  the 
emancipated  slaves  were  endowed  with  equal 
political  rights.  The  farthest  possible  limit  of 
the  franchise  for  men  was  then  reached.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  all  the 
women  of  the  State  were  rendered  the  political 
inferiors  of  all  the  men  in  it  and  so  remain.  No 
matter  how  well  born,  how  intelligent,  how 
highly  educated,  how  virtuous,  how  rich,  how 
refined,  the  women  of  to-day  constitute  a  politi- 
cal class  below  that  of  every  man,  no  matter  how 
base  born,  how  stupid,  how  ignorant,  how  vicious, 
how  poverty-stricken,  how  brutal.  The  pauper 
in  the  almshouse  may  vote ;  the  lady  who  de- 
votes her  philanthropic  thought  to  making  that 
almshouse  habitable,  may  not.  The  tramp  who 
begs  cold  victuals  in  the  kitchen  may  vote  ;  the 
heiress  who  feeds  him  and  endows  universities 
may  not.  The  half  civilized  hordes  pouring  into 
our  country  through  the  open  gates  of  our  sea- 
port towns,  the  Indian  if  settled  in  severalty,  the 
negro  on  the  cotton  plantation, — all,  now,  or  in  a 
few  years,  have  a  vote.     But  the  white  woman 


Woman  Suffrage.  75 

of  purest  blood,  and  who,  in  her  own  person,  or 
that  of  mother  or  grandmother,  has  helped  to 
sustain  the  courage  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  to 
fight  the  heroic  battle  of  abolition,  and  to  dress 
the  wounds  of  the  Rebellion, — this  woman  must 
keep  silence.  Legislatures  are  .distracted  by 
controversies  over  the  means  to  secure  the 
"illiterate  vote";  pasters  are  provided,  and 
symbols ;  and  in  the  meanwhile,  all  the  women 
— who  embrace  half  the  education,  half  the 
virtue,  and  but  a  fraction  of  the  illiteracy  or 
crime  of  the  community — remain  excluded  from 
the  franchise,  buried  behind  this  dense  cloud  of 
often  besotted  ignorance. 

The  above  observations  were  made  in  the 
address  delivered  before  the  Convention  at  the 
New  York  hearing  May  31, 1894  (see  Appendix, 
p.  210).  On  June  2d  the  following  passages 
appeared  in  an  editorial  of  the  Evening  Post. 

"  One  great  cause  of  the  woman-suffrage  agitation  is 
the  eagerness  with  which  democracy  has  taken  hold  of 
the  machinery  of  government.  .  .  .  The  work  of  gov- 
ernment, which  is,  or  ought  to  be,  really  a  means  only 
towards  human  enjoyment  and  convenience,  has  come 
to  be  considered  one  of  the  great  ends  of  human  exist- 
ence. .  .  .  The  inordinate  importance  attached  to 
the  business  of  governing,  and  the  discredit  heaped 
on  everybody  who  did  not  take   part   in   it,  have   had 


76  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

the  effect  of  filling  the  minds  of  men  and  women 
with  the  idea  that  anybody  who  did  not  share  in  it  was 
robbed  of  a  natural  right  bestowed  on  him  or  her  by  the 
Creator.  To  this  we  owe  the  indiscriminate  distribution 
of  the  suffrage  among  all  classes  and  conditions  of  males 
in  all  democratic  countries,  and  the  growing  disregard 
of  intelligence  and  character  in  admitting  people  to  a 
share  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  Nothing  but 
a  feeling  that  each  person  held  his  right  to  the  franchise 
by  the  same  title  as  his  right  to  liberty  or  property,  could 
have  caused  or  excused  the  tremendous  rush  of  barbar- 
ous men  into  the  work  of  government  during  the  past 
fifty  years.  It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  women,  seeing 
this,  and  hearing  on  all  sides  that  electing  people  to  office 
was  one  of  the  chief  ends  of  man,  and  about  the  noblest 
work  in  which  he  could  engage,  should  have  begun  to 
complain  of  their  exclusion,  and  demand  a  fair  share  of 
what  men  made  so  much  of." 

The  author  of  the  present  pamphlet  may  be 

"  Who  the  author  of  this  production  is,  is  wholly  un- 
necessary to  the  public." 

pardoned  for  a  certain  feeling  of  self-compla- 
cency, that  the  Evening  Post  thus  condescended, 
in  its  editorial  columns,  to  reply  to  the  argument 
of  a  public  address,  which  its  columns  of  ordi- 
nary news  had  left  entirely  unnoticed.  We  trust 
the  Post  would  not  consider  disrespectful  the 
remark  that,  to  the  feminine  ear,  this  reply  bears 
a  marvellous  resemblance   to   those   conscious 


Woman  Suffrage,  jy 

sophisms  of  tlie  nursery,  wherewith  tender 
mothers  try  to  persuade  their  obstreperous 
children  to  desist  from  snatching  at  the  fragile 
bric-a-brac  which  may  have  dazzled  infantile 
fancy.  "No,  no,  Tommy,  don't  touch  that;  it 
will  hurt  Tommy's  pretty  little  hand ;  see,  it  cuts 
mamma ;  it  is  an  ugly  thing  anyhow  ;  mamma 
won't  have  it  standing  there  to  bother  Tommy ; 
here,  nurse,  come  and  take  it  away  and  throw  it 
out  of  the  window  ;  dear  mamma  does  not  want 
Tommy  to  play  with  such  an  ugly  old  thing ! " 
To  whom  comes,  discreet,  the  nurse,  conveys 
away  under  her  apron  the  discredited  bauble ; 
until  such  time  as  the  child's  attention  may  have 
become  sufficiently  distracted  by  its  own  play- 
things, to  permit  the  replacement  of  the  con- 
tested toy  in  its  old  place  of  honor. 

For  that  a  place  of  honor,  and  none  else,  must 
be  held  by  that  in  human  society  which  is  con- 
spicuous, foremost,  supreme  in  its  own  sphere, 
and  which,  in  any  sense,  controls  the  actions  and 
determines  the  status  of  all  the  members  of 
society,  no  one  knows  better  than  the  Evening 
Post  None  better,  than  that  the  honor  paid 
to  government  is  not  a  fancy  of  the  "  French 
Rousseauites,"  *  nor  of  Democracy,  and  that  the 

*  After  all,  only  Robespierre  was  distinctly  a  disciple  of  Rousseau. 


78  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

Evening  Post  approximates  strangely  towards 
the  *^  anarchist  idea  "  it  condemns,  in  pretending, 
at  least  in  this  argumentum  adfoeminam,  that 
"government"  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence 
anyhow.  But  if  this  be  the  case,  why  object  to 
the  "rush  of  barbarous  men"  into  it?  Why 
should  not  all  cultivated  and  refined  people  of 
both  sexes  content  themselves  with  the  reflec- 
tion, that  government  is  only  a  convenience, 
that  intellectual  pursuits  are  more  dignified  than 
politics,  that  afternoon  teas  are  more  elegant 
assemblages  than  primaries,  that  the  ideas  that 
mould  public  opiilion  in  the  long  run  are  greater 
than  the  precepts  that  govern  public  actions  at 
short  range,  that  the  pure  science  of  the  labora- 
tory is  of  far  more  real  importance  than  the  ap- 
plied science  of  the  WeeMy  Tribune,  that  Goethe 
pronounced  the  speculations  of  Lamarck  of  far 
more  consequence  than  the  whole  French  Rev- 
olution, that  Aristotle  was  really  greater  than 
Alexander,  and  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  than 
Elizabeth,  and  that  it  is  a  more  agreeable  and 
humane  way  to  spend  one's  evenings  at  home  in 
perusal  of  the  Evening  Post,  than  to  shout  one- 
self hoarse  either  on  the  platform  or  in  the 
audience  of  mass-meetings  collected  to  influence 
the  decisions  of  this  low-down,  no  account,  in- 


Woman  Suffrage,  79 

convenient  convenience  of  a  democratic  govern- 
ment ! 

Why  ?  unless  because,  as  Aristotle  himself 
remarked,  even  from  the  midst  of  his  natural- 
history  museum,  and  surrounded  by  the  exotic 
gifts  of  Alexander,  '^  Man  is  a  political  animal !  " 

At  the  moment  the  idea  of  Representation 
vras  born  into  the  world,  came  with  it  a  twin,  but 
so  imperfectly  developed,  so  meagre  and  insigni- 
ficant in  appearance,  it  failed  for  ages  to  attract 
any  particular  attention.  This  twin  idea  is,  that 
in  a  highly  organized  society,  in  a  properly  de- 
veloped social  organism,  the  function  of  govern- 
ment has  become,  if  it  never  were  befoi-e,  twofold 
— not  only  to  rule,  but  to  represent.  To  give, 
and  with  constantly  increasing  definiteness,  pre- 
cision and  efficiency,  articulate  expression  to  all 
the  forces,  needs,  interests,  wills,  and  thoughts  of 
all  the  elements  of  the  body  politic,  which  thus, 
and  thus  only,  become  fully,  because  thus  only 
socially,  alive.  The  conception  of  the  spiritual 
and  secular  arm,  distinctly  enunciated  so  long  ago 
in  the  Roman  state,  and  since  dominating  Euro- 
pean history,  has,  like  most  powerful  social  con- 
ceptions, a  profound  physiological  basis  and  anal- 
ogy. This  conception  for  the  social  organism, 
bases  itself,  though  unconsciously,  on  the  fact 


8o  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

that  in  the  individual  organism  the  brain  is  at 
once  the  organ  of  thought,  and  the  organ  of  the 
will,  which  executes  the  purpose  of  thought. 
Further,  that  the  thoughts  generated  during  the 
processes  of  the  brain,  reflect  innumerable  vital 
actions  sustained  throughout  the  body,  even  to 
its  extreme  periphery,  and  whose  influence, 
irradiated  to  the  brain,  initiates  these  same  brain 
processes.  One  of  the  latest  dicta  of  neurological 
science  is,  that  in  the  mosaic  of  the  brain  cortex, 
the  entire  body  is  represented. 

Although  the  representative  function  of  gov- 
ernment only  began  to  be  distinctly  recognized 
when  our  Saxon  ancestors  began  to  send  dele- 
gates from  their  "  tun-moot "  to  their  "  hundred  " 
and  "  shire  " ;  yet  in  a,  vague  but  still  most  im- 
pressive way,  the  function  of  representation  was 
discerned  even  in  the  Oriental  monarchies  which 
greet  us  at  the  dawn  of  history.  To  this  was 
due  the  very  majesty  of  the  great  king, — of 
Rameses,  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  of  Xerxes.  In 
his  personality  was  mysteriously  concentrated 
all  the  personalities  of  vast  empires — Scythian, 
Bactrian,  Assyrian,  Elamite,  Arab,  Copt;  Nine- 
veh, Babylon,  Susa,  Thebes,  and  Memphis, — all 
fused  together,  until  a  tremendous  quintessence 
of  vital  force  could  be  distilled  through   the 


Woman  Suffrage,  8i 

body  and  soul  of  the  man,  whose  physical 
organs  bore  a  superficial  resemblance  to  those 
of  the  slave  who  stood  behind  the  throne. 
Hence  this  physical  appearance  was  rejected 
as  an  illusion  of  sense — just  as  in  later  ages 
devout  Catholics  rejected  the  physical  aspect  of 
the  blessed  bread  and  wine,  and  saw  in  these 
the  veritable  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 

To  a  properly  developed  social  imagination, 
the  social  organs,  through  whose  medium  is 
manifested  the  collective  force  and  vital  action 
of  a  great  people,  should  be  invested  with  no 
less  sublime  dignity  than  that  which  humanity 
has  always,  (and  not  only  since  New  York  began 
to  hold  parlor  meetings  for  suffrage)  invested 
its  rulers  and  kings.  We  are  in  a  period  of 
temporary  eclipse  of  faith ;  and  so  content  to 
despise  indiscriminately,  our  symbols,  our  rulers, 
and  even  the  representatives  of  ourselves.  But 
man  lives  by  faith  and  cannot  long  live  without  it. 

At  present,  the  view  of  government  which 
the  Evening  Post  (but  only  for  the  present  pur- 
pose) advocates,  leads  directly  to  many  of  the 
very  evils  which  the  Evening  Post  is  constantly 
expending  most  strenuous  energies  to  combat. 
Because  the  idea  of  sovereignty  has  become  de- 
tached from  all  previously  admitted  attributes 


82  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

of  sovereignty,  is  no  longer  necessarily  associ- 
ated with  any  insignia  of  intrinsic  power,  the 
conception  of  sovereignty  itself  has  become  lax, 
feeble,  confused. 

Sovereignty,  divided  into  a  million  fragments, 
seems  illusory,  worthless.  "  Absurd,"  women  are 
told,  "  to  struggle  for  the  right  of  suffrage,  when 
that  means  nothing.  You  might  as  well  pine 
for  the  privilege  of  riding  in  a  crowded  omni- 
bus, when  you  already  have  the  right  of  driving 
in  your  comfortable  carriage.  The  right  to  rule 
yourselves !  No  one  rules  himself,  much  less 
any  one  else.  What  personal  influence  may  be 
exerted  by  tongue  or  pen,  can  be  done  by  the 
unenfranchised  full  as  well  as  by  those  who  pos- 
sess the  illusory  privilege  of  the  ballot.  I,  w^ho 
am  legally  entitled  to  vote,  do  not  vote  half  the 
time.     What,  then,  do  you  want  to  vote  for  ? " 

"  No  one  rules  ! "  Yet,  according  to  the  dic- 
tum of  a  master  in  political  thought,  the  first 
question  to  be  decided  in  any  community  is: 
Where  rests  the  Sovereign  Power  ?  The  answer, 
according  to  the  theory  of  a  democratic  society, 
is  :  With  Public  Opinion.  According  to  the 
theory  of  a  Republic,  the  sovereignty  lies,  with 
such  Public  Opinion  as  shall  prove  itself,  through 
superior  virtue  and  intelligence,  to  be  not  only 


Woman   Suffrage,  83 

the  best,  but  the  strongest.  For  intelligence 
must  be  stronger  than  ignorance,  and  virtue 
than  vice,  wherever  free  play  is  really  allowed 
to  each. 

This  is  the  answer  according  to  theory.  The 
answer  according  to  fact  must  be  that  the 
Sovereign  Power  rests  upon  physical  force. 
Otherwise  it  would  be  incomprehensible  that 
Power,  thus  defined,  should  remain  confined  to 
the  sex  whose  only  universal  superiority  lay  in 
physical  force ;  and  that  the  sex  which  admit- 
tedly possessed  in  abundance  the  attributes  of 
intelligence  and  virtue  should  be  excluded  from 
all  share  in  the  Sovereign  Power. 

This  cynical  answer  has  indeed  been  given; 
given,  mirabih  dictu,  even  by  clergymen,  by 
those  whose  profession  dictates  the  constant 
exaltation  of  mental  over  physical  qualification 
for  the  Sovereignty. 

Nevertheless,  not  only  the  answer  is  not  true, 
but,  what  is  more  important  for  our  purpose, 
no  one  really  believes  that  in  modern  societies 
it  is  true.  Every  one  knows  that  physical  force 
is  at  present  the  servant,  and  not,  if  it  has  ever 
been,  the  master  of  intelligence.  If,  with  the 
advent  of  manhood  suffrage,  apparently  unintel- 
ligent masses  often  obtain  supreme  control,  it 


84  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

can  only  be  because  intelligence  has  either  abdi- 
cated or  declined.  The  control  is  not  at  all  due 
to  the  possession  of  a  vast  amount  of  latent 
physical  force,  which  by  itself  is  as  useless  as 
the  river,  which  is  as  yet  unturned  into  the 
mill  race. 

Who  abdicates,  but  those  who  call  the  privi- 
lege of  the  ballot  illusory  ? 

The  complex  contradictions  in  the  present 
distributions  of  Sovereign  Power  are  further 
intensified  by  the  vulgarization  of  the  general 
ideal.  It  is  one  thing  to  say,  "  Some  men  shall 
rule,"  quite  another  to  declare,  "  All  men  shall 
rule,"  and  that  in  virtue  of  the  most  primitive, 
the  most  rudimentary  attribute  they  possess, 
that  namely  of  sex.  If  the  original  contempt 
for  masses  of  men  has  ever  diminished,  and  the 
conception  of  mankind  been  ennobled,  it  is  be- 
cause, upon  the  primitive  animal  foundation, 
human  imagination  has  built  a  fair  structure  of 
mental  and  moral  attribute  and  possibility,  and 
habitually  deal^  with  that.  This  indeed  is  no 
new  thing  to  do ;  for  it  was  to  this  moral  man 
that  Pericles  addressed  his  funeral  oration ;  and 
of  whom  Lincoln  thought  in  his  speech  at 
Gettysburg. 

Of  this  moral  man,  women — the  sex  hitherto 


Woman  Suffrage.  85 

so  despised — are  now  recognized  to  constitute 
an  integral  part.  It  is  useless  therefore  to 
attempt  to  throw  them  out  by  an  appeal  to  the 
primitive  conditions  of  a  physical  force,  to 
which  no  one  appeals  for  any  other  purpose. 

It  is  forgotten  to-day  that,  until  to-day,  the 
incapacity  of  women  for  the  suffrage  was  attrib- 
uted, not  merely  to  their  deficiency  in  physical 
force,  but  to  the  profound  mental  and  moral 
inferiority  of  her  entire  nature.  Whether  this 
theory  was  ultimately  derived  from  the  natural 
contempt  of  the  primitive  savage  for  every  one 
whom  he  could  knock  down ;  or  whether,  as  the 
Canon  Law  asserts,  it  is  the  natural  punish- 
ment for  the  seduction  of  Adam  by  Eve,  and 
the  expression  of  the  subsequent  natural  indig- 
nation of  the  human  race,  which  owes  to  the 
same  fact  its  existence  and  its  fall ;  certain  it 
is  that  this  theory  has  prevailed  throughout 
Christendom  down  to  the  second  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  is  only  just  beginning 
to  wane  in  its  force  and  in  its  extraordinary 
practical  efficiency. 

During  the  long  ages  of  class  rule,  which  are 
just  beginning  to  cease,  only  one  form  of  sov- 
ereignty has  been  assigned  to  all  men — that, 
namely,  over  all  women.     Upon   these  feeble 


86  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

and  inferior  companions  all  men  were  permitted 
to  avenge  the  indignities  they  suffered  from  so 
many  men  to  whom  they  were  forced  to  sub- 
mit. To-day,  when  all  men  rule,  and  diffused 
self-government  has  abolished  the  old  divisions 
between  the  governing  classes  and  the  governed, 
only  one  class  remains  over  whom  all  men  can  ex- 
ercise sovereignty — namely,  the  women.  Hence 
a  shuddering  dread  runs  through  society  at  the 
proposal  to  also  abolish  this  last  refuge  of  facile 
domination. 

"  Shall  man  make  over  to  woman  half  of  the  sovereign 
power  which  has  hitherto  been  his,  and  which,  if  he 
chooses,  he  can  keep  ?  .  „  .  It  is  incumbent  on  the 
present  holders  of  power,  before  abdicating,  to  consider 
whether  in  the  common  interest  their  abdication  is  to 
be  desired."* 

Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  like  Mr.  Francis  Park- 
man,  writes  as  an  historian,  a  closet  student, 
easily  affected  by  abstract  terms  and  general 
ideas.  In  these  pages  we  ourselves  have  also 
greatly  affected  general  ideas ;  and  have  enun- 
ciated a  claim  to  a  share  in  the  sovereignty,  in 
very  much  the  same  spirit  as  Mr.  Smith  urges 
men  not  to  "  abdicate."     Let  us,  however,  now 

*  Goldwin  Smith,  Woman  Suffrage.  Essays  on  Questions  of  the 
Day,  1893. 


Woman  Suffrage,  Z"] 

descend,  where  neither  of  these  eminent  his- 
torians really  ever  deigns  to  descend,  into  the 
arena  of  practical  issues  and  daily  life,  and 
inquire  in  what  sense  men  would  "abdicate 
their  sovereignty  "  if  women  also  voted. 

Whether  we  take  a  township  of  a  thousand 
voters  electing  a  school  commissioner,  or  a  city 
electing  its  mayor,  or  the  whole  country  voting 
for  President, — the  principle  is  the  same ;  so  we 
may  keep  to  the  convenience  of  the  smaller 
numbers. 

Suppose  when  the  men  had  voted  alone,  300 
had  decided  for  candidate  A,  and  700  for  B, 
who  was  therefore  elected.  On  the  next  occa- 
sion, say  in  1895,  a  thousand  women  had,  in 
the  same  locality,  been  added  to  the  electorate. 
The  700  men,  plus  500  women,  vote  on  this 
occasion  for  B ;  300  men  and  500  women  vote 
for  A.  As  before,  B  is  elected,  and  the  700 
men,  in  the  second  case  as  in  the  first,  secure 
their  choice.  In  what  way  then  could  they  be 
said  to  have."  abdicated  the  sovereignty?" 

Take  another  combination.  In  a  third  elec- 
tion 700  of  the  women  unite  with  the  700  men  ; 
and  the  combination,  being  the  majority,  again 
carries  its  candidate,  only  more  women  have  the 
satisfaction  of  succeeding  than  when  they  had 


88  ''Common  Sense'''  applied  to 

divided  equally  between  the  successful  and  the 
unsuccessful  parties.  In  another  possibility, 
800  women  might  unite  with  only  400,  or  even 
300  men,  and  the  1100  total  would  be  victorious 
over  the  remaining  900  of  the  electorate,  where 
the  beaten  party  would  contain  a  majority  of 
the  male  voters  (700),  and  a  minority  of  the 
female  (200).  This  is  the  occasion  so  much 
dreaded,  in  which  the  men  would  seem  to  have 
been  overpowered  by  a  female  vote. 

Evidently  the  occasion  would  only  recur  from 
time  to  time,  among  the  infinite  number  of 
possible  combinations,  and  could  no  more  be 
considered  the  rule  than  a  throw  of  double 
sixes  on  dice.  And  when  it  does  occur,  where  is 
the  harm  ?  Why  the  anticipation  of  such  insuf- 
ferable humiliation  at  this  special  combination 
of  persons  ?  This  would  not  be  avowed  if  the 
thousand  new  voters  added  to  the  town  were 
Swedes,  as  might  be  the  case  in  Wisconsin ;  or 
Hungarians,  as  in  some  mining  settlement  of 
Pennsylvania:  or  Irish,  as  easily  happens  in 
New  York.  There  is  only  one  supposition  that 
can  explain  the  sentiment  of  horror  which  the 
mere  suggestion  of  this  occasional  electoi'al 
combination  undoubtedly  inspires  many  people  : 
it  is  that  they  have  not  learned  to  think  of 


Woman  Suffrage.  89 

women  Sispersotis.  The  addition  of  their  vote 
does  not  seem  to  them  the  addition  of  so  many 
more  hundred  or  thousand  people  to  the  voting 
list ;  but  of  a  "  feminine  element,"  an  incalculable 
quantity,  something  unknown,  mysterious,  and 
with  which,  at  all  events,  it  would  be  horribly 
"  unmanly  "  to  be  associated.  Like  the  valiant 
husband  retreated  under  the  bed,  the  represen- 
tative of  this  class  of  thinkers  declares,  "  While 
I  have  the  spirit  of  a  man  in  me,  I  will  not 
come  out  and  submit  to  this  outrage  ! " 

But,  from  the  moment  that  women  have  been 
made  persons  before  the  law,  it  is  illegal  to 
treat  them  otherwise.  It  is  really  a  breach  of 
the  law  to  depress  them  from  the  status  of  so 
many  other  people,  to  that  of  vague  elemental 
forces. 

Nevertheless,  this  is  done  all  the  time.  Re- 
formers, deeply  concerned  for  minority  repre- 
sentation, as  is  just,  and  bewailing  the  crudities 
of  representative  government  in  its  infancy, 
dwell  on  the  woes  of  the  democrats  who  never 
get  heard  in  Vermont,  and  of  the  republicans 
who  are  silenced  in  South  Carolina.  But  for 
the  women  who  may  not  be  heard  anywhere, 
and  who,  forbidden  to  speak,  cease  in  innu- 
merable directions  to  know  how  to  think, — for 


QO  *'  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

these  the  sensitive  reformers  feel  neither  sym- 
pathy nor  concern.  And  why  ?  Because  women 
are  not  to  them  persons. 

It  may  be  said,  for  it  has  been  said,  that  the 
objection  to  seeing  a  vote  of  700  men  overcome 
by  a  coalition  of  300  men  with  800  women,  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  defeated  minority  knows,  if  it 
had  a  free  hand  and  was  allowed  to  use  fisticuffs, 
it  could  pound  into  a  jelly  a  majority  composed 
so  largely  of  women.  It  would  feel,  therefore, 
sullen,  restive,  and  justly  indignant,  that  it 
should  be  prohibited  from  using  this  power 
and  obliged  to  submit  to  a  merely  nominal 
force  and  supremacy.  For  "  there  is  no  force 
behind  the  votes  of  women." 

But  is  it  only  in  such  an  hypothetical  case 
that  a  minority  would  know  it  could,  if  allowed 
to  resort  to  physical  force,  shiver  to  fragments 
the  majority  ?  The  burly  brakeman  in  railroad 
strikes  would  probably,  in  a  fair  hand-to-hand 
encounter,  be  much  bested  over  all  the  stock- 
holders of  the  road, — weakened,  not  only  be- 
cause they  included  women  in  their  midst,  but  also 
by  sedentary  habits  and  predominantly  indoor 
occupations.  Why  do  they  not  try  this  way  of 
settling  their  diJfficulties  ?  Why  do  not  the 
classes  in  England  who  still  remain  entirely  un- 


Woman  Suffrage.  91 

represented,  but  with  whom  rests  so  much  phys- 
ical strength,  drop  their  fists  into  the  balance, 
as  Brennus  his  sword,  and  cut  short  the  futile, 
womanish,  discussion  ? 

The  answer  is  really  in  every  one's  mouth.  It 
is  not  that  it  cannot  be  done,  but  that,  on  the 
whole,  people  are  all  agreed  that  it  is  best  it 
should  not  be  done.  It  is  not  that  physical 
force  is  respected  less,  but  that  mental  force 
is  respected  more.  Once  the  feudal  baron,  un- 
able to  sign  his  name,  laughed  at  the  sw^ordless 
clerk.  To-day  the  laugh  has  changed,  and 
while  it  is  permissible  not  to  be  a  skilled  ath- 
lete, it  is  everywhere  considered  a  disgrace  to 
sign  with  a  mark,  everywhere,  that  is,  except 
when  exercising  the  functions  of  popular  sover- 
eignty at  the  polls. 

We  note  these  things  not  because  we  ourselves 
have  any  dislike  for  fighting,  or  any  contempt  for 
physical  force,  or  any  belief  that  in  its  absence, 
and  in  default  of  the  joyous  courage  born  of 
tense  muscles  and  well  knit  bones,  any  State 
could  survive.  But  merely  because,  in  the  nat- 
ural development  of  societies  from  primitive  be- 
ginnings to  modern  complexities,  many  things 
have  been  added  to  the  primitive  nucleus;  and 
these  complicate  all  decisions,  and  transfer  the 


92  Woman   Suffrage, 

idea  of  power  to  many  other  forces  besides  those 
which  inspire  a  blow. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  "abdication  of  sover- 
eignty "  which  is  proposed,  demanded,  or  to  be 
dreaded  in  extending  the  suffrage  to  women. 
It  is  simply  the  association  of  women  with  men, 
for  such  functions  of  sovereignty  as  they  are 
able  to  exercise,  and  whose  dissociation  from 
some  others  has  for  precedent  a  similar  dissoci- 
ation among  the  functions  of  the  complex  mod- 
ern State. 

"One  of  the  features  of  a 'revolutionary  era  is  the 
prevalence  of  a  feeble  facility  of  abdication.  The  hold- 
ers of  power,  however  natural  and  legitimate  it  may  be, 
are  too  ready  to  resign  it  on  the  first  demand.  .  .  . 
The  nerves  of  authority  are  shaken  by  the  failure  of  con- 
viction." * 

♦Goldwin  Smith,  loc.  cit.,  p.  185. 


AEGIIMENTS    OF   OPPOKENTS. 

MR.  SMITH  cannot  be  said  to  fail  to  show 
how  the  admission  of  women  to  the  elec- 
torate would  cause  the  ^'abdication"  of  men, 
for  he  does  not  even  try.  Rather  does  he  jump 
about  with  grave  excitement  from  one  point 
to  another,  mixing  many  things,  all  accessible 
things,  together,  until  he  has  concocted  a  veritable 
ollapodrida,  2i2yotpourri  of  an  argument,  whose  de- 
tails are  a  wonderful  collection  of  unrelated  parts. 
The  problem  offered  is  to  show  why,  in  a  repre- 
sentative system  based  on  the  double  principle 
that  all  the  intellisrence  in  the  State  shall  be  en- 
listed  for  its  welfare,  and  all  the  weakness  in  the 
State  represented  for  its  own  defence,  women, 
being  often  intelligent,  often  weak,  and  always 
persons  in  the  community,  should  not  also  be 
represented.  To  show  that  they  should  not, 
Mr.  Smith  tells  us :  "  That  sexual  revolution 
must  have  its  limitation  if  the  human  race  is  to 
continue."     "That  the  movement  in  favor  of 

93 


/ 


94  ''Common  Sense"  applied  to 

woman  suffrage  is  part  of  a  general  attempt  to 
change  the  relations  between  the  sexes." 
"That  laws  passed  by  the  woman's  vote  will 
be  felt  to  have  no  force  behind  them."  "  That 
the  transfer  of  power  from  the  military  to  the 
unmilitary  sex  involves  national  emasculation." 
"  That  a  man  who  prized  his  home  would  pro- 
test against  any  proposal  to  give  the  family 
more  than  one  vote."  "  That  women  are  not  a 
class  but  a  sex,  with  class  interests  throughout 
the  scale  identical  with  those  of  the  man, — 
and  effectually  represented  by  the  male  vote." 
"  That  women  as  a  sex  have  no  wrongs  which 
male  legislatures  cannot  be  expected  to  redress, 
so  it  is  not  necessary,  to  obtain  redress,  that 
there  shall  be  an  abdication  by  man  of  the  sov- 
ereign power."  "That  women  are  (unfortu- 
nately) already  admitted  to  professions  of  medi- 
cine, law,  and  teaching;  to  male  universities,  to 
government  clerkships,  thus  depriving  of  a  place 
many  worthy  men  who  would  otherwise  support 
them  in  marriage."  "  That  if  some  women  are 
underpaid,  time  will  redress  the  injustice,  which 
after  all  is  not  extensive,  since  a  needlewoman 
has  a  light  trade  and  could  not  be  paid  like  a 
stevedore,  and  the  gains  of  prima  donnas  are 
enormous."     "  That  punishment  for  marital  infi- 


Woman   Suffrage,  95 

delity  must  be  more  severe  on  the  woman  be- 
cause she  brings  an  adulterine  child  into  the 
family."  ''  That  unenfranchised  women  are  not 
nearly  as  ill  off  as  were  American  slaves." 
"That  wife-beating  is  sometimes  justified  by  the 
unspared  husband-nagging  which  had  preceded 
it."  "That  divorce  should  not  be  made  too 
easy."  "  That  marriage  is  a  restraint  imposed 
on  the  passions  of  the  man  for  the  benefit  of 
the  woman,  .  .  .  and  woman  would  not  be 
benefited  by  its  abolition."  "That  Shelley 
was  a  brute  to  Harriet,  and  Mr.  Mill  infatuated 
by  his  hallucination  about  the  surpassing  genius 
of  Mrs.  Mill."  "  That  in  the  earliest  stages  of 
civilization  the  family  was  socially,  legally,  and 
politically  a  unit."  "  That  Mill's  calm  nature  is 
betrayed  into  violence  in  his  denunciation  of  the 
present  institution  of  marriage,  .  .  .  and  no 
woman  could  regard  with  complacency  a  female 
spiritualist  installed  beside  her  hearth."  "  That 
some  of  the  champions  of  women  aim  to  make 
them  independent  of  marriage."  "  That  a  passion 
for  emulating  the  male  sex  has  taken  possession 
of  some  women,  as  women  under  the  Roman  Em- 
peror began  to  play  the  gladiator  when  other 
excitements  were  exhausted."  "That  women 
cannot  be  both  the  helpmate  and  complement 


g6  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

of  man,  and  at  the  same  time  his  rival  and  com- 
petitor/' "  That  writing  Greek  or  Latin  has  not 
been  very  useful  to  the  generality  of  male  stu- 
dents, and  would  be  therefore  useless  to  women." 
"That  St.  Paul  ratifies  the  unity  of  the  family, 
the  authority  of  its  head,  and  the  female  need 
of  that  headship."  "In  this  movement  of 
sexual  revolution,  the  family  is  practically 
threatened  with  dissolution."  "  Woman,  if  she 
becomes  a  man,  will  be  a  weaker  man, — yet 
must  be  prepared  to  resign  her  privileges  as  a 
woman."  "  In  an  age  of  flabby  sentiment  and 
servile  worship  of  change,  we  have  had  enough 
of  weak  and  precipitate  abdications.  To  one 
of  them  we  owe  the  catastrophe  of  the  French 
revolution." 

At  this  catastrophe,  as  a  good  place  to  stop, 
let  us  draw  breath.  We  have  cited  Mr.  Smith's 
arguments  running,  but  exactly  in  the  order  in 
which  he  presents  them,  and  nearly  always  in  his 
exact  words.  These  multifarious  statements 
may  be  good ;  they  may  be  w^arranted ;  they 
may  show  just  such  a  range  of  miscellaneous  in- 
formation as  is  to  be  expected  from  a  writer 
and  professor  of  history ;  they  may  have  all  the 
philosophic  calm  from  which  Mill  was  betrayed, 
and  all  the  poetic  fervor  which  failed  to  exon- 


Woman  Suffrage,  97 

erate  Shelley ;  but  in  the  name  of  all  the 
syllogisms  of  logic,  what  have  they  to  do  with 
the  case?  Not  the  flowers  which  bloom  in 
the  spring,  tra-la,  would  seem  to  be  more 
irrelevant. 

Mr.  Smith  observes  that  Mr.  Mill's  writings 
on  the  subjection  of  women  are  to  be  studied  in 
the  light  afforded  by  his  autobiography.  Simi- 
larly, in  estimating  this  remarkable  contribution 
to  the  questions  of  the  day,  it  is  fair  to  remem- 
ber the  vehemence  with  which  Mr.  Smith  has 
written  against  the  principle  of  Home  Rule  for 
Ireland ;  and  the  fact  that,  though  professor  of 
history  at  Cornell,  he  is  reported  to  have  had 
nothing  but  sneers  for  the  admission  of  women 
students  to  his  classes.  Mr.  Smith  does  not 
come  to  the  discussion  of  the  Political  E-ights  of 
Women  with  a  cool  and  unbiassed  mind.  But, 
as  no  one  else  does,  nor  perhaps  can,  this  is 
hardly  a  reproach. 

It  is  noticeable  that,  throughout  the  diatribe 
— for  it  is  this  rather  than  a  discussion, — Mr. 
Smith  brings  no  political  reasons  to  bear  on  a 
question  of  political  right.  He  does  not  even 
note  the  special  incongruity  of  the  admission  to 
the  legal  profession  of  women  who  are  still  des- 
titute of  political  rights  and  of  any  share  in  the 


98  **  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

government  of  the  country.  He  plants  himself 
squarely  on  the  basis  of  Sex  Instinct.  He  talks 
exactly  like  the  blustering  husband  (how  many 
thousands  of  them  there  are  !),  who  declares  his 
wife's  expression  of  opinion  in  regard  to  Tom- 
my's schooling  or  the  behavior  of  the  coachman, 
an  invasion  of  his  own  prerogative  as  head  of 
the  house.  The  comparison  is  most  literal,  for 
over  and  over  again  through  the  essay  does  Mr. 
Smith  affirm,  that  to  permit  women  to  express, 
through  the  ballot,  their  opinion  in  regard  to 
the  management  of  schools,  or  the  behavior  of 
officials,  is  to  demand  that  "  man  hand  over  the 
government  to  her,"  (p.  218).  Under  the  in- 
spiration of  a  (possibly  recent)  perusal  of 
Taine's  Ancien  Itegime^  Mr.  Smith  sees,  in  the 
willingness  of  American  men  to  consider  fairly 
this  new  application  of  the  principles  of  demo- 
cratic government,  only  a  repetition  of  the  fatu- 
ous cowardice  with  which  French  noblemen 
handed  over  their  chateaus  to  a  KevolutioHary 
mob. 

Reading  these  solemn  references  to  sex  rela- 
tions, and  marriage,  and  adultery,  and  divorce, 
and  Shelley,  and  Roman  gladiators,  it  is  difficult 
to  escape  a  feeling  of  bewilderment,  almost  of 
vertigo.     Do  sex  relations  depend  upon  acts  of 


Woman  Suffrage,  99 

Parliament  or  constitutional  amendments  ?  Can 
women  marry  a  ballot,  or  embrace  tbe  franchise, 
otherwise  than  by  a  questionable  figure  of 
speech  ?  Must  adultery  and  infanticide  neces- 
sarily be  favored  by  the  decisions  of  female 
jurors  ?  Is  divorce  legislation,  as  arranged  by 
the  exclusive  wisdom  of  men,  now  so  satisfactory, 
that  women — who  must  perforce  be  involved  in 
every  case — should  always  modestly  refrain 
from  attempting  amendment  ? 

This  entire  class  of  considerations,  however 
irrelevant  to  the  issue,  may  be  grouped  together, 
and  considered  together,  because,  to  a  large 
class  of  minds — the  rudest,  quite  as  much  as 
those  of  Mr.  Smith's  cultivation — they  are  the 
considerations  which  do  come  to  the  front 
whenever  Equal  Rights  are  suggested. 

The  reason  is  that  men,  accustomed  to  think 
of  men  as  possessing  sex  attributes  and  other 
things  besides,  are  accustomed  to  think  of 
women  as  having  sex,  and  nothing  else.  Against 
this  immense  and  insolent  assumption,  it  is  true 
that  the  women  of  this  century,  and  most  em- 
phatically the  women  of  this  latter  half  of  it, 
have  revolted.  Their  demand  for  equality  does 
not  mean  a  claim  to  be  considered  equal  in 
power  or  achievement,  except  or  until  facts  may, 


TOO  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

iu  the  individual  cases,  demonstrate  such  equal- 
ity. No  one  imagines  that,  by  voting,  the  female 
industrial,  who  does  less  work,  can  secure  the 
same  pay  as  the  man  who  does  more  ;  but  only 
that,  indirectly,  but  soon,  she  will  secure  equal 
pay  when  she  does  the  same  work,  and  better 
pay  when  she  does  better, — which  is  not  now 
the  case.  No  one  believes  that,  through  exercise 
of  the  franchise,  the  female  teacher,  physician, 
artist,  or  wiiter,  will  be  made  the  equal  of  their 
male  compeers,  whenever  they  cannot  approxi- 
mate to  them  by  other  agencies.  It  would  not 
even  be  supposed  possible  that  the  act  of  cast- 
ing a  vote  in  New  York  would,  of  itself,  enable 
a  female  essayist  to  compete  with  Mr.  Smith  in 
Toronto.  But  what  is  imagined,  claimed,  and 
very  seriously  demanded,  is,  that  women  be 
recognized  as  human  beings,  with  a  range  of 
faculties  and  activities  co-extensive  vnth  that  of 
men,  whatever  may  be  the  difference  in  the 
powers  within  this  range.  The  sex  relations  of 
women  as  lovers,  as  wives,  as  mothers,  remain 
absolutely  untouched,  certainly  unimpaired,  by 
the  demand  to  extend  beyond  these.  What  is 
impaired,  is  not  the  sex  relation  nor  sex  con- 
dition, but  the  social  disabilities,  the  personal 
and    social    subordination,    the     condition    of 


Woman  Suffrage.  loi 

political  non-existence,  which  have  been  foisted 
upon  that  sex  condition.  Because  the  strength 
of  the  wife  is  on  the  average  less  than  that  of 
the  husband,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  in- 
decorous for  a  wife  to  sit  down  to  eat  »at  the 
same  table  with  her  husband.  Yet  that  until 
rather  recently  was  the  custom  among  the 
peasantry  of  Central  Europe.  Because  the 
father  of  a  child  owes  protection  to  its  mother, 
and  both  are  morally  bound  to  be  faithful  in  the 
marriage  bond,  is  not  a  reason  to  assert  that  the 
wife  and  daughters  in  a  family  should  have  no 
voice  in  public  affairs,  while  husband  and  sons 
had.  Because  Mrs.  Smith  is  (we  hope)  a  help- 
meet, comfort,  and  complement  to  Mr.  Smith,  it 
does  not  follow  that  she  may  not  be  a  rival  and 
competitor  with  Mr.  Jones.  Indeed,  arguing  on 
general  principles,  we  should  suppose  that  Mr. 
Smith  would,  in  re  Jones,  prefer  that  situation 
rather  than  the  other  one.  In  modern  times,  and 
outside  of  Oneida  Communities,  it  is  usually  ex- 
pected that  a  woman's  relations  with  her  hus- 
band should  not  be  the  type  of,  but  the  em- 
phatic contrast  to,  her  relations  with  every  other 
man.  If  not,  how  can  marriage  be  such  a 
"  beneficial  restraint "  as  Mr.  Smith  declares  it  to 
be  ?     But  if  this  be  the  case,  what  is  the  use  of 


I02  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

talking  about  marriage,  when  we  are  talking 
about  voting  ?  Do  all  the  men  who  "  prize 
their  homes  "  insist  that  the  whole  family  shall 
have  only  one  opinion  ?  But  if  multiple  opin- 
ions, why  not  multiple  votes  ?  Ah,  because,  re- 
plies Mr.  Smith  (we  presume),  a  discussion  over 
a  breakfast  table  is  harmless — it  leads  to  noth- 
ing. Romola  may  call  Tito  a  treacherous  man, 
but  he  retains  the  whip  hand,  and  reminds  her, 
"  the  envoys  are  gone,  the  library  sold,  and  you 
are  my  wife."  But  a  vote  is  an  efficient  force, 
it  tends  to  accomplish  something.  That  may 
be  something  I  don't  like ;  imagine,  then,  the 
humiliation  of  seeing  that  brought  about  by  a 
woman  !  There  it  is  ao-ain — the  humiliation  ! 
If  one  thousand  men  vote  against  me,  I  submit, 
and  bide  my  turn ;  but  if  seven  hundred  men 
and  three  hundred  women  carry  a  measure,  it  is 
intolerable.  "Laws  passed  by  the  woman's 
vote  would  be  felt  to  have  no  force  behind 
them."  Not  even  the  force  of  all  the  men  who 
agreed  with  them  or  with  whom  they  agreed  ? 
But  if  effective  assertion  of  female  opinion  in 
public — possibly  remote — affairs  be  so  galling 
to  the  masculine  pride  of  the  men  who  "  prize 
their  homes,"  how  have  they  been  able  to  toler- 
ate the  loss  of  the  practical  domestic  sovereignty 


Woman   Suffrage,  1 03 

whose  delights  were  so  much  more  tangible  and 
appreciable?  "One  thing  is  not  French,"  said 
Napoleon — "that  a  woman  should  do  as  she 
pleases."  But  nowadays  she  does  pretty  much 
as  she  pleases,  yet  men  do  not  seem  ill  content. 
A  woman  comes  and  goes  to  her  own  house, 
and,  in  New  York  State  at  least,  her  husband 
does  not  suspect  her  of  a  rendezvous,  even  if  she 
be  occasionally  late  to  dinner.  She  is  not  for- 
bidden to  learn  to  read  and  write  lest  she  cor- 
respond with  lovers ;  she  is  not  restricted  to  any 
household  employment  she  can  contrive  to  get 
any  one  else  to  carry  on  for  her ;  she  can  go  to 
college  though  unmarried,  and  though  married 
she  may  make  a  will ;  she  can  select  her  own 
church,  and  defy  her  husband's  sentiments  on 
infant  baptism ;  she  can  keep  her  own  check- 
book, no  matter  whence  she  obtains  her  funds, 
from  father,  husband,  or  her  own  exertions  ;  she 
can  occupy  her  own  time  in  her  own  way,  think 
her  own  thoughts,  express  her  own  wishes, 
carry  out  her  own  plans — indeed,  do  such  a 
number  of  things  all  out  of  her  own  head  as 
must  be  perfectly  maddening  to  the  scholars 
deeply  impressed  with  the  "female  need  of 
headship."  0  tempora  !  0  mores  !  Times  have 
changed,  and  we  with  them. 


I04  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

"  Quem  enim  Romanorum  pudet  uxorem  ducere  in 
convivium  ?  Aut  cujusnon  mater-familias  primum  locum 
tenet  aedium  atque  in  celeb ritate  versatur  ?  Quod  multo 
fit  aliter  in  Graecia."  * 

Can  it  be  possible  that  Mr.  Smith  is  unaware 
of  this  domestic  revolution  which  has  been  thus 
effected  under  his  very  nose  ?  He  does  not  com- 
plain of  things  as  they  are,  but  only  as  they  might 
be ;  he  cannot,  therefore,  be  anxious  that  domes- 
tic authority  has  already  in  any  way  declined. 
There  are  households  whose  female  members 
have  a  way  of  getting  their  own  way  with  mar- 
vellous facility  by  the  simple  process  of  never 
talking  back  to  the  tall  talk  of  the  master  of 
the  house.  He  does  the  talking  and  lays  down 
the  law — in  the  theory ;  they  attend  to-  the 
practice.  Is  there  some  such  occult  reason  lurk- 
ing for  Mr.  Smith  also  among  the  res  angustas 
dom%  that  he  continues  to  imagine  the  dreadful 
time  is  coming,  and  does  not  see  that  it  has 
already  come  ?  If  he  can  tolerate  the  present 
freedom  of  thought  and  life  which  law,  custom, 
and  public  opinion  to-day  secure  to  his  wife  and 
daughter,  why  does  he  feel  so  badly,  so  terribly, 
at  a  remote  possibility  that  their  vote  should 
one  day  affect  the  selection  of  the  Governor  for 

*  Cornelius  Nepos,  Prsefatio. 


Woman  Suffrage,  105 

Canada,  or  be  counted  in  among  the  agencies 
which  should  decide  the  foreign  policy  for 
Hawaii?  If  the  shoe  does  not  pinch,  why 
should   the   mantle  ? 

If  the  "  transfer  of  power  from  the  military  to 
the  un military  sex  involve  national  emascula- 
tion," and  the  right  to  representation  implies 
such  "  transfer  of  power,"  how  can  a  peaceful 
historian  venture  to  vote  ?  Who  proposes  to 
"  transfer  "  anything  ?  The  big  boy  is  on  the 
sofa,  the  little  sister  uncomfortably  on  the 
ground.  Because  after  a  while  she  clambers  to 
a  seat,  and  persuades  him  to  resist  his  primitive 
manly  impulse  to  kick  her  down,  it  does  not 
follow  that  lie  is  displaced.  If  a  youth  and  a 
maiden  walking  through  a  field  are  attacked  by 
a  bull,  it  is  not  customary  to  suppose  that  her 
presence  will  compel  him  to  run  away.  It  is 
rather  expected  it  would  act  as  an  additional 
incentive,  if  needs  be,  to  make  him  fight. 

This  idea  that  masculine  work  cannot  proceed 
if  there  is  any  woman  around  ;  or  that,  though 
she  may  be  innocuous  while  looking  on,  she 
must  fatally  "  lower  the  standard  "  if  she  takes 
a  hand  at  it  herself,  is  very  funny  but  very  old. 
It  has,  indeed,  an  air  of  venerable  senility.  In 
the  last  fifty  years  how  often  it  has  been  de- 


io6  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

clared,  with  all  the  pathos  of  menaced  vested 
interests,  that  even  the  diplomas  already  con- 
ferred upon  men  vrould  become  worthless  were 
women  subsequently  admitted  to  the  learned 
institution  which  had  conferred  them.  If  men 
cannot  maintain  their  standard  in  war  or  learn- 
ing, or  anything  else,  when  the  women  speak, 
why  is  it  so  much  easier  when  they  are  silent, 
yet  stay  around  pretty  much  the  same  ?  Mr. 
Smith  and  many  others  seem  to  imagine  that  a 
boy  studies  his  Latin  lesson  in  one  way  if  he  is 
all  alone  in  a  room,  in  another  way  if  a  girl  sits 
down  with  her  dictionary  at  the  other  side  of 
the  table  ;  that  the  farmers'  sons  at  Cornell 
will  show  depth  of  thought  over  their  historical 
lectures  while  shut  up  with  each  other,  but  only 
"  shallow  quickness  "  if  contaminated  by  the 
presence  of  girls.  Women  cannot  take  up  an 
occupation,  they  can  only  "invade  a  sphere." 
Their  passion  for  emulating  the  male  sex  is 
such  that  they  are  threatening  to  deprive  some 
energetic  members  of  it  of  their  surest  chance 
of  making  a  living  by  getting  possession  of 
government  clerkships.  Roman  women,  if 
Juvenal  be  correct,  fought  as  gladiators. 
American  women,  if  Gold  win  Smith  be  well 
informed,  count  Treasury  notes,  and  are  thus 


Woman   Suffrage,  107 

made  independent  of  marriage.  In  the  mean- 
while, the  friend  *  of  poor  women,  who  secured 
them  this  avenue  of  employment,  purposely- 
kept  their  salaries  low,  that  men  with  votes 
should  not  be  tempted  to  claim  their  places. 

In  a  general  upheaval  the  things  which  were 
at  the  bottom  come  ujd  to  the  top.  It  is  only 
in  moments  of  radical  discussion  like  the  pres- 
ent, and  when  the  possibility  of  a  practical  issue 
excites  the  expectation  and  the  temper,  that 
the  really  ugly  facts  and  beliefs — whose  atmos- 
phere, unacknowledged,  is  affecting  everybody 
all  the  time — are  brought  distinctly  into  view. 
It  is  then  possible  for  a  writer  who  ought  to 
know  better,  to  denounce  the  thoroughly  Anglo- 
Saxon  movement  for  the  extension  of  equal 
rights  as  a  "  sexual  revolution  threatening  the 
family  with  dissolution,  and  turning  woman 
into  a  weaker  man." 

This  is  equivalent  to  admitting  that  it  is 
owing  to  the  great  predominance  of  purely  sex 
ideas  about  women  that  they  have  hitherto 
been  restricted  to  unequal  rights.  That  families 
cannot  be  held  together  on  any  basis  of  inter- 
familial  justice,  equality,  affection,  and  funda- 
mental instinct,  but  must  dissolve,  not  when  the 

*  General  Spinner. 


io8  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

P atria  Potestas  ceases,  but  when  the  recognized 
equality  of  women  begins.  That  the  ^'  differen- 
tiation of  the  sexes,"  which  lends  such  a  charm 
to  life,  merely  means  the  permanent  mainten- 
ance of  such  inequality  of  horizon  and  opportu- 
nity as  shall  always  leave  women  at  some  disad- 
vantage, provide  that  they  are  always  less  well 
equipped  for  their  work,  and  less  well  paid,  and 
increase  the  chances  that  this  work  will  always 
be  rather  less  well  done.  That  yet  the  differ- 
ences between  men  and  women  are  so  small 
that  they  will  entirely  disappear  the  instant 
the  one  great  difference  of  position  is  abolished, 
whereby  men  in  private  or  in  public  are  always 
expected  to  order,  bully,  or  command ;  the 
women  always  to  submit,  shrink,  and  obey. 
The  pleasure  of  life  will  be  gone  when  there  is 
no  one  left  to  boss  !  All  the  feminine  charm,  all 
the  womanly  grace,  all  the  bewitchment,  all  the 
dear  delight,  that  from  the  beginning  of  time 
men  have  been  ascribing  to  women,  does  not  lie 
in  them,  but  outside  of  them  ;  it  is  not  a  potency, 
it  is  a  situation  ;  it  is  not  a  natural  force,  it  is  a 
political  contrivance ;  it  has  not  been  celebrated 
in  poetry  and  song  because  men  love  women, 
but  only  because  men  love  to  order  women 
around  !     What  a  mournful  disillusion  ! 


Woman  Suffrage,  109 

Are  there,  however,  no  real  and  serious  ob- 
jections to  woman  suffrage  ?  It  is  impossible 
to  take  Mr.  Smith  seriously.  But  in  the  discus- 
sions which  have  animated  New  York  during 
these  April  days, 

"  Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled," 

serious  and  fair-minded  men  have  occasionally 
brought  forward  considerations,  which  serve  at 
least  to  explain  the  historic  situation  ;  the  long 
exclusion  of  women  from  political  rights ;  and 
the  bewildered  hesitation  now  felt  when  they 
claim  them. 

The  following  concise  statement  briefly  sums 
up  the  argument."^ 

"  By  division  of  labor  between  human  mates, 
the  centre  of  activity  for  the  female  is  the  nest, 
where  she  works,  apart  from  other  mated 
females,  supreme  unto  herself  as  to  the  ways 
and  means  of  her  duties.  For  the  male,  how- 
ever, the  centre  of  activity  is  the  common  field 
where  he  works  in  industrial  relation  with  his 
fellow-males. 

<'  In  gregarious  animals  generally  this  indus- 
trial relation  between  the  males  begets  concert 
of  action  for  mutual  advantage. 

*  The  Philosophy  of  It.     Edward  Curtis,    M.D. — Private  com- 
munication. 


no  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

"  With  civilized  man  such  concert  of  action 
takes  the  form  of  an  association,  wherein  certain 
members  are  detailed  to  devise  rules  and  regula- 
tions for  the  common  weal  of  the  workers ; 
others,  etc.  .  .  .  Such  association  grown 
from  simple  beginnings  to  the  complex  organiza- 
tion known  as  The  State,  is  thus,  primordially 
and  essentially,  an  organization  of  the  males,  hy 
the  males,  ybr  the  masculine  function  of  provi- 
sion and  defence  of  the  family.  .  .  .  Females 
cannot  claim  an  equal  voice  in  the  aifairs  of 
such  an  organization  on  the  plea  of  ^  equal 
rights  for  all.' 

"  ^  Equal  rights  for  all  'is  an  ellipsis  for 
equal  rights  in  the  same  thing,  for  all  the  simi- 
larly conditioned  as  to  the  thing. 

"  Women  never  have  to  defend^  and  only  are 
called  upon  to  provide  if  they  are  in  the  abnor- 
mal condition  of  lacking  or  having  lost  a 
natural  male  protector. 

"  In  the  councils  of  the  community's  providers 
and  defenders,  the  normally  conditioned  woman 
can  have  no  right  to  any  voice  at  all ;  and  no 
claim  for  an  impossible  partial  voice  can  be 
entered  for  the  abnormal  few. 

"  Nor  yet  on  the  ground  of  obvious  benefit  to 
the  community :    for  (it  would  be  absurd  that) 


Woman  Suffrage,  1 1 1 

men  in  the  conduct  of  their  self-imposed  task 
for  the  provision  and  defence  of  the  family 
should  be  obliged  to  abide  as  much  by  the 
opinions  of  their  female  mates  as  their  own  : — 
since  these  would  be  the  opinions  of  the  inex- 
perienced, the  irresponsible,  and  the  organically 
diiferent." 

Here  is  the  whole  thing  in  a  nutshell.  Men 
support  women,  at  least  "  in  normal  conditions," 
as  an  equivalent  for  the  prehistoric  service  of 
keeping  off  wild  beasts,  knocking  down  fellow- 
men,  and  bringing  home  to  the  family  roast 
the  toothsome  antelope  or  succulent  bear.  All 
public  affairs,  including  the  government  which 
supervises  and  defends  them,  develop  from 
the  group  of  events  which  began  to  happen 
outside  the  cave :  all  private  affairs  continue 
the  incidents  that  occurred  within.  The  sex 
line  is  drawn  along  eternal  division  of  the  Ins 
and  the  Outs ;  only,  to  be  accui-ate,  the  names 
should  usually  be  reversed,  and  the  situation 
turned  outside-in. 

Because  the  foregoing  statement  is  most  ab- 
stract in  character,  and  philosophic  in  form,  it 
is  not  therefore  a  true  presentation  of  existing 
circumstances.  To  use  the  Comtean  phrase, 
while  reasoning  about  men  is  now  generally 


1 12  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

sustained  on  a  basis  of  positive  thought,  the 
reasoning  about  women  scarcely  ever  emerges 
from  the  stage  of  theology  or  metaphysics.  Mr. 
Goldwin  Smith  confounds  into  one  abstract  sex 
relation,  the  relations  of  a  wife  with,  her  hus- 
band, of  a  female  clerk  w^ith  her  employer,  of  a 
saleswoman  witli  the  dry -goods  dealer,  of  a  fac- 
tory operative  with  the  manufacturer,  of  a 
school  teacher  with  the  school  board,  of  a  pupil 
with  her  professor,  of  a  student  at  a  co-educa- 
tional university  with  her  fellow — in  a  word, 
all  the  conceivable  social  relations  which  misjht 
be  established  by  any  woman  in  the  community, 
with  any  man  in  it.  Similarly,  though  less 
crudely.  Dr.  Curtis  substitutes  a  generalization 
of  the  facts  of  "  nesting  "  and  "  mating,"  as  ob- 
served in  natural  history,  for  the  historic  facts 
of  human  society.  Like  the  antique  theories 
about  necessarily  circular  orbits  of  heavenly 
bodies,  this  generalization  is  entirely  congruous 
with  itself ;  but — with  nothing  else.  Natu- 
ral history,  with  all  its  limitations,  stands 
at  one  end  of  this  argument ;  but  an  indefinitely 
multiplied  personal  experience  is  at  the  other. 
In  Dr.  Curtis'  Philosophy  of  It^  this  double 
standpoint  is  described  with  equal  clearness 
and  force.     The  concluding  sentence  seems  to 


Woman  Suffrage.  1 1 3 

break  out  almost  involuntarily  from  the  depths 
of  a  very  precious  personal  experience,  and  as 
such  cannot  fail  to  appeal  to  thousands  who 
may  be  fortunate  enough  to  share  the  like. 

Still,  a  personal  experience,  though  multiplied 
a  thousand-fold,  is  not  necessarily  a  philosophic 
generalization. 

When  vi^e  remember  the  thousands  of  men 
throughout  the  State  who  every  morning  leave 
their  homes  to  go  forth  to  their  work  until 
evening;  who  reap  hay  in  the  broiling  sun;  or 
guide  the  energies  of  mighty  steam-engines; 
or  plod  through  the  mazes  of  intricate  business ; 
or  who  bear  any  of  the  multitudinous  burdens 
of  arduous,  responsible,  or  monotonous  toil: 
when  we  remember  the  visions  that  follow 
these  men  all  day  long,  of  wife  and  children 
at  home,  nested  in  cosy  nooks,  or  rambling 
through  pleasant  places,  sheltered,  protected, 
provided  for  by  the  brain  and  arm  which  are 
laboring  in  their  behalf — when  we  think  of 
these  things,  and  of  the  pictures  of  the  situa- 
tion which  arise  so  readily  to  the  mind  at  its 
suggestion,  we  may  wonder  much  less  at  the 
influence  which  is,  coincidently,  usually  drawn. 

"  Thy  husband  is  thy  lord,  thy  life,  thy  keeper. 
Thy  head,  thy  sovereign  ;  one  that  cares  for  thee 


114  "  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

And  for  thy  maintenance  ;  commits  his  body 
To  painful  labor,  both  by  sea  and  land  ; 
To  watch  the  night  in  storms,  the  day  in  cold, 
Whilst  thou  liest  warm  at  home,  secure  and  safe." 

Nevertheless,  closer  scrutioy  will  find  flaws 
in  this  plausible  theory — flaws  at  every  angle. 
The  audience  who  listened  to  Katherine's  mis- 
chievous eloquence  knew  its  flaw  very  well; 
Petruchio  had  come  "to  wive  it  wealthily  in 
Padua ;  "  and  an  American  public  cannot  easily 
forget  that  with  us,  either  property  earned  or 
property  inherited  is  no  longer  admitted  to  be 
the  basis  of  representation.  This  has  been  the 
English  theory ;  but  it  is  not  ours. 

"  Lord  Palmerston  said,  that  those  who  have  no  prop- 
erty ought  not  to  be  the  persons  to  direct  the  legislation 
applicable  to  those  who  have  property."* 

"We  no  longer  think  it  desirable  to  give  political 
representation  to  wealth,  or  to  anything  but  persons. 
We  have  become  thoroughly  democratic,  but  our  great- 
grandfathers had  not."  f 

The  primitive  savage  claimed  to  "  support  his 
wife,"  and  inserted  a  promise  to  do  so  in  his 
marriage  ceremony.     What  he  meant  was  that 

*  Hansard's  Debates,  vol.  153,  col.  771.     Quoted  by  Cox,  English 
Reform  Bills,  p.  16. 
f  Fiske,  Critical  Period  of  American  History,  p.  257. 


Woman  Suffrage,  115 

hQ  would  bring  home  game  for  lier  to  cook,  and 
make  srarments  out  of  the  skins.  He  counted 
the  hunting  as  work,  and  the  cooking  as  mere 
play — a  conception  which  the  estimate  of  later 
ages  has  exactly  reversed. 

Considering  that  all  the  industries  of  the 
world  have  developed  out  of  the  household 
labors  of  women,  it  is  an  odd  ^'philosophy" 
which  assumes  that  women  have  been  habitu-^ 
ally  "supported"  in  idleness  by  men.  From 
the  virtuous  woman  of  Solomon  to  Lydia,  the 
merchant  of  Tyrian  dye;  from  the  guild  mis- 
tresses of  England  to  the  factory  girls  of  Low- 
ell, everywhere  and  always  we  find  women  at 
work.  Their  work  has  lacked  formal  social 
recognition,  which  is  the  very  thing  to-day  com- 
plained of ;  it  has  been  blotted  out  by  such  phrases 
as,  "The  man  ^supports'  his  mate,"  and,  "the 
male  mates  combine  for  provision  and  defence." 
But  at  most,  and  for  the  most  time,  obviously, 
the  man  has  simply  brought  home  to  his  wife 
the  raw  material  for  her  industry. 

Not  for  the  first  time  to-day,  but  to-day  un- 
questionably, and  on  a  large  scale,  women  have 
moreover  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  home — 
or  "  nest  " — and  entered  the  "  gainful  occupa- 
tions"  classified   in    the    census.     As   already 


ii6  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

shown,  there  are  in  the  United  States  to-day  at 
least  three  million  women  so  classified,  and  in 
1880,  360,000  of  these  were  in  the  State  of  New 
York.  This  is  one  eighth  of  the  total  female 
population,  as  estimated  in  1890. 

In  Europe  4,000,000  women  are  employed  in  factory- 
labor  alone,  and  economists  say,  "  we  could  not  possibly 
do  without  them." 

Although  no  general  statistics  exist  on  the 
civil  status  of  women  so  engaged,  Carroll 
Wright's  interesting  researches  in  twenty  cities 
found  among  17,000  working  women  15,88'? 
single  women,  1038  widows,  and  745  married 
or  4  ^  of  the  whole.  But  widows  were  6  ^  of  th( 
whole,  so  that  those  who  had  passed  under  th( 
protection  of  a  mate  were,  taken  together,  lOfoo.] 
all  these  working  women, — fairly  representative 
of  the  whole.  These  numbers  do  not  include 
either  factory  operatives  or  professional  women. 

Diffused  through  the  entire  community,  and 
varied  by  the  marriage  relations  and  episodic 
"  support "  of  shorter  or  longer  duration,  these 
women  and  their  work  are  apt  to  make  as  little 
impression  on  the  imagination  of  the  community 
as  did  the  large  artisan  vote  in  England,  before 
it  was  discovered  in  1866. 


Woman  Suffrage,  1 1 7 

"  These  artisans,  forming  26  ^  of  the  borough  constitu- 
ents, kept  the  secret  so  well,  their  votes  were  so  devoid 
of  any  traceable  consequence,  they  had  all  this  power  of 
shaking  our  institutions  and  so  obstinately  persisted  in 
not  doing  it,  that  now  these  gentlemen  are  quite  alarmed, 
and  recoil  in  terror  from  the  abyss  into  which  they  have 
not  fallen,  .  .  26  ^  concentrated  would  be  a  consider- 
able representation  ;  but  26  ^  diffused  may  be  almost  the 
same  as  none  at  all."* 

This  is  true  for  the  average  imagination,  but 
is  no  longer  permissible  when  we  are  consider- 
ing the  philosophy  of  it,  which  is  bound  to 
account  for  everything.  Rude  empiricism  may, 
but  philosophy  may  not,  stigmatize  as  "  ab- 
normal "  360,000  or  3,000,000  women ;  simply 
because  wrens,  sparrows,  and  polygamic  hens 
seem  always  to  get  provided  with  mates.  Apart 
from  its  inaccuracy,  it  is  rather  cruel  to  affix 
this  stigma  of  "abnormality"  upon  unmarried 
women,  even  those  who  remain  unmarried  all 
their  lives,  who  are  fortunately  very  much  in 
the  minority.  It  is  surely  enough  to  be  obliged, 
in  a  crooked  world,  to  remain  denied  the  pos- 
session of  husband  and  children,  but  these 
women  must  also  suffer  the  depressing  influence 
of  a  stigma,  of  being  counted  organically 
wrong   in    the   scheme   of   things.      Is  it  not 

*  John  Stuart  Mill,  Hansard,  vol.  182,  col.  1256. 


ii8  '''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

enough  that  one  set  of  faculties  are  denied  ex- 
pansion, but  all  must  be  compressed  and  shriv- 
elled through  inaction?  On  the  other  hand, 
apart  from  cruelty  and  inaccuracy,  this  theory 
of  the  "abnormal"  is  highly  unphilosophical, 
since  the  test  of  the  norm  is  not  derived  from 
human  society,  but  from  something  else.  Since 
this  society,  under  almost  all  known  circum- 
stances, always  does  contain  a  varying  minority 
of  unmated  adults  of  both  sexes,  why  is  it  not 
fair  to  conchide  that  this  circumstance,  though 
exceptional  in  a  lesser  social  organism,  is  really 
essential  to  the  larger  one  of  human  beings? 

What  is  the  proof  of  organic  fitness,  except 
constancy  of  organ,  and  proved  and  permanent 
utility  of  function  ?  Both  conditions  obtain 
for  celibates  in  human  society,  and  for  celibate 
women  far  more  than  for  celibate  men. 

If  we  turn  from  abstractions,  and  appeal  to 
the  senses,  which  are  "at  short  range  so  des- 
potic," let  the  thoughtful  observer  enter  the 
city  cars  at  any  time  between  seven  and  nine 
every  morning,  and  study  the  throng  of  women, 
young  and  old,  who  also  are  going  out  to  their 
labor  until  evening — the  clerks,  typewriters, 
stenographers,  saleswomen,  book-keepers,  cash- 
iers, later  the  teachers ;  or  let  him  stand  at  a  busy 


Woman  Suffrage,  1 1 9 

corner  on  Broadway  at  six  in  the  evening,  and 
watch  the  crowds  pouring  out  from  the  retail 
stores,*  the  binderies,  printing  establishments, 
newspaper  offices;  or  let  him,  either  morning 
or  evening,  try  to  visit  the  ling  of  ferries 
encircling  the  city,  and  analyze  into  their  com- 
ponent sexes  the  vast  crowds  pouring  in  and 
out  from  the  suburbs ;  or,  at  some  railway 
station  at  a  factory  town,  watch  the  operatives 
disembarking  from  the  train  for  their  day's 
work  ; — after  a  single  day  of  such  inspection,  the 
observer,  if  thoughtful  and  attentive,  would  find 
it  hard  to  get  away  from  the  vivid  impression, 
hard  to  believe  that  any  women  remained  at 
home  to  sew  and  dust  and  sweep  or  mind  the 
babies.  And,  to  his  imagination,  the  "  women  of 
leisure "  would  disappear  as  completely  as,  in 
the  United  States,  the  men  of  leisure  are  w^iped 
out  of  the  national  census. 

If  the  refusal  of  the  sovereignty  to  women 
were  really  due  to  the  fact  that  they  did  no 
work  and  had  male  protectors  to  work  for  them, 
like  queen  bees,  then  whenever  they  did  work, 
or  had  no  male  protectors,  the  right  of  franchise 
should  logically  have  been  accorded.     This  has 

*  There  are  1400  women  employed  in  one  Sixth  Avenue  store 
alone,  in  all  its  departments. 


I20  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

never  been  done.  The  grant  of  municipal  fran- 
chise to  spinsters  and  widows  in  England  is 
not  made  to  them,  but  to  the  property  they 
may  happen  to  hold,  since  it  is  only  when  they 
have  property  that  they  are  supposed  to  need 
protection,  and  the  absence  of  a  male  protector 
to  be  inconvenient.  No  women  could  have 
worked  harder,  and  more  obviously  on  a  level 
with  their  men,  in  respect  of  endurance,  courage, 
and  heroism,  and  even  intelligence,  than  the 
wives  of  the  colonists  who  founded  this  coun- 
try. Yet  no  one  dreamed  of  according  a  share 
in  the  crown  to  those  who  so  valiantly  held  up 
their  end  of  the  cross.  The  act  of  shooting 
Indians  from  a  stockade  seemed  to  our  fore- 
fathers, as  to  our  contemporaries,  so  meritorious, 
that  it  deserved  all  the  sovereignty  it  could 
get.  The  acts  of  nursing  families  through  the 
small-pox,  of  bearing  famine,  or  grinding  the 
scanty  corn,  seemed  too  trifling  for  social  recog- 
nition. 

The  contrasting  circumstances  of  the  women 
who,  for  the  moment,  live  at  ease  in  New  York 
to-day,  bring  no  contrast  in  their  political  status. 
Where  sovereignty  is,  as  has  for  centuries  gen- 
erally been  the  case,  associated  witli  wealth, 
rank,  and  leisure,  women  are  excluded   because 


Woman  Suffrage,  121 

they  were  considered  fit  only  for  drudgery. 
When,  through  the  widening  of  the  franchise, 
the  balance  of  power  tends  to  shift  to  those  who 
w^ork,  the  women  are  again  excluded,  on  the 
ground  that  they  do  not  work  hard  enough  ! 
Ccdum  non  animum  mutant ! 

Then  is  forgotten  for  women  what  is  so  em- 
phatically remembered  in  regard  to  men — that 
the  development  of  civilization  in  increasing  ac- 
tivities increases  the  number  of  activities  which 
are  occupied  with  other  objects  than  getting  a  liv- 
ing. As  a  man's  fortune  increases,  his  wife,  who 
at  first  perhaps  did  all  her  own  housework,  is 
enabled  to  hire  servants,  and  busy  herself  with 
^* social  duties."  Substitute  the  words  "public," 
"  political,"  for  "  social "  affairs,  and  a  situation 
is  defined  wherein  an  educated,  energetic,  intel- 
ligent leisure  class  is  encouraged  to  devote  its 
energies  to  the  discussion  of  innumerable  prob- 
lems, quite  remote  from  its  own  support,  which 
is  secured,  or  from  its  own  defence — which  is  not 
endangered.  The  leisure  class,  which  arises  in 
every  community  so  soon  as  enough  wealth  has 
accumulated  to  support  it,  is  the  equivalent  on 
the  large  social  scale  for  the  woman  of  leisure, 
whose  energies,  released  from  drudge r}^,  are 
liberated  for  finer,  yet  not  less  strenuous  and 


122  ''Common  Sense"'  applied  to 

useful  activities  by  the  wealth  of  her  individual 
family. 

Notwithstanding  the  "  support  "  afforded,  and 
which  has  seemed  to  men  so  liberal,  a  standing 
complaint  of  women,  since  they  have  acquired 
articulate  utterance,  has  always  been  their  pov- 
erty; complaint  for  some  purposes,  preferred 
more  emphatically  by  married  women  than  by 
those  who  earn  their  own  living.  In  all  coun- 
tries but  America,  undowered  women  have  ex- 
perienced much  difficulty  in  finding  mates,  who, 
in  marrying  a  dowry,  were  certainly  relieved — 
as  in  the  case  of  Petruchio — of  much  of  the 
burden  of  "  support."  Then  the  inheritance, 
even  in  America,  has  passed  Avith  little  reserve 
into  the  hands  of  the  husband,  who  certainly 
was  thereby  relieved  of  much  of  the  necessity 
of  combining  with  other  "  mates  "  for  the  "  pro- 
vision "  of  their  respective  families.  Then, 
when  women  had  no  inheritance,  they  were 
(and  are)  supposed  to  marry  for  a  livelihood, 
and  the  bare  livelihood  being  accorded,"  they 
were  not  expected  to  ask  for  anything  else. 
Attempts  at  combination  among  women  for  any 
purpose  have  been  constantly  blocked  by  their 
inability  to  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets  to 
meet  any  expenses,  inasmuch  as  social  activities 


Woman  Suffrage,  123 

were  not  counted  among  the  necessities  of  exist- 
ence comprised  under  the  term  "  livelihood." 

The  withdrawal  of  household  industries  into 
larger  spheres,  the  consequent  liberation  of  the 
practical  energies  of  thousands  of  women,  which 
until  very  recently  would  have  thus  been  en- 
tirely absorbed,  the  awakened  consciousness  of 
the  inconvenience  of  pecuniary  dependence,  the 
re-arrangements  of  the  entire  field  of  labor  con- 
stantly going  on,  has  already  greatly  quickened 
the  industrial  capacity  of  girls,  unmarried 
women,  and  widows.  The  movement  is  destined 
to  affect  the  condition  of  married  women  also ; 
it  has  already  begun  to  do  so,  it  will  do  so  in- 
creasingly in  the  future,  as  work  is  increasingly 
recognized  to  be  the  normal,  and  not  the  ab- 
normal, condition  of  human  beings. 

We  think  the  foregoing  considerations  should 
considerably  qualify  the  presumed  impertinence 
of  women's  "  interference "  with  the  public 
affairs,  which  have,  as  Dr.  Curtis  succinctly 
shows,  developed  out  of  primitive  combinations 
for  "  provision."  Certainly  at  no  time  could 
women  be  less  vitally  interested  in  these  than 
men,  especially  on  Dr.  Curtis'  showing,  for  who 
can  be  more  concerned  about  provision  than 
those  who  are  to  be  fed  ?     "  Inexperience  "  is 


124  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

alleged  as  a  reason  for  rejecting  tlie  counsels  of 
women  in  sucli  matters.  Sometimes  there  is  some- 
thing in  this  excuse,  since  it  is  naturally  difficult 
for  any  class  of  people  to  become  experienced  in 
matters  which  they  are  forcibly  prevented  from 
having  anything  to  do  with.  At  other  times, 
however,  the  special  experience  of  even  the  '^nest- 
ing "  woman  may  be  t)f  value  in  the  councils  of 
valiant  man.  For  instance,  if  the  primitive  com- 
munity were  discussing  an  improvement  in  stone 
arrow-heads,  it  is  possible  that  the  female  mem- 
bers could  add  little  to  the  discussion — at  least, 
on  the  unlikely  assumption  that  they  were  not 
in  the  habit  of  ever  taking  a  hand  in  shooting 
for  themselves.  But  if  the  discussion  hap- 
pened to  turn  on  the  time  of  the  year  most 
favorable  for  hunting,  these  same  women,  if 
permitted  to  speak,  might  have  suggested,  from 
their  own  observation,  that  at  certain  seasons 
slaughter  of  the  does  would  risk  extermination 
of  the  game.  So,  many  ages  later,  when  English 
manufacturers  were  torturing  women  and  young 
children  to  death  in  factories,  their  own  hus- 
bands and  fathers  aiding,  it  is  conceivable,  had 
the  natural  instincts  and  faculties  of  the  mill- 
owners'  wives  had  free  play,  they  might  have 
suggested  that  under  this  system  the  race  could 


Woman  Suffrage,  125 

be  exterminated  or  fatally  degenerated.  But  the 
English  lady — trained,  if  not  bound,  to  her 
"  nest  " — was  as  mute  as  her  prehistoric  ances- 
tress, who  watched  by  the  camp-fire  while  the 
braves  chattered  at  a  distance. 


VI. 

ALLEGED    INEXPERIENCE    OF    WOMEN. 

PLAUSIBLE  as  is  the  theory  which  limits 
"interference"  in  public  affairs  to  those 
who  may  claim  some  experience  in  them,  no  one 
who  attentively  considers  the  conduct  of  even 
modern  States  will  venture  to  assert  that  this 
theory  is  realized  in  practice.  Indeed,  it  never 
has  been  so  realized.  The  suggestion  that  peo- 
ple should  undertake  to  learn  something  about 
things  before  they  undertook  to  dogmatize  or  to 
act  in  reference  to  them  is  a  daring  innovation  on 
all  established  precedent.  It  is  not  only  in  Tam- 
many-ridden 'New  York  that  expert  knowledge 
seems  at  a  discount, — they  donH  do  these  things 
any  better  in  France,  nor  in  England.  Herbert 
Spencer  ridicules  the  House  of  Commons  for 
paying  more  attention  to  the  knowledge  its 
members  may  have  of  Horace,  than  of  sanitary 
engineering,  even  those  to  whom  may  be  en- 
trusted the  work  requiring  engineering  experts. 

126 


/ 


Woman  Suffrage,  127 


And  if  an  institution  undertakes  not  two  functions, 
but  a  score, — if  a  government,  whose  office  it  is  to  defend 
citizens  against  aggressors,  foreign  and  domestic  ;  en- 
gages also  to  disseminate  Christianity,  to  administer 
charity,  to  teach  children  their  lessons,  to  adjust  prices 
of  food,  to  inspect  coal-mines,  to  arrange  cab-fares,  to 
look  into  people's  stink-traps,  to  vaccinate  their  children, 
to  send  out  emigrants,  to  prescribe  hours  of  labor,  to  ex- 
amine lodging-houses,  to  test  the  knowledge  of  mercan- 
tile captains,  to  provide  public  libraries,  to  read  and 
authorize  dramas,  to  inspect  passenger-ships,  to  see  that 
small  dwellings  are  supplied  with  water,  to  regulate  end- 
less things,  from  a  banker's  issues  down  to  the  boat-fares 
on  the  Serpentine, — it  is  not  manifest  that  its  primary  duty 
must  be  ill  discharged  in  proportion  to  the  multiplicity 
of  affairs  it  busies  itself  with  ?  "  * 

A 

Women  are  not  necessarily  so  "  inexpe- 
rienced" that  their  advice  would  always  be 
an  intrusion. 

From  the  moment  it  has  been  accepted  as 
important  that  the  entire  body  of  the  State 
should  be  actively  alive,  alert,  and  capable  ;  and 
that  the  education  of  a  few  dozen  experts  would 
not  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  case ;  from  the 

*  Herbert  Spencer,  Essay  on  Over -Legislation^  1871,  p.  94.  This 
satirical  enumeration  is  guided  by  Mr.  Spencer's  favorite  dogma  of 
opposition  to  all  State  interference.  For  our  purpose  the  list  is  more 
interesting  as  indicating  how  various  are  the  functions  assumed  by  the 
modern  State, — how  impossible  to  reason  concerning  them  exclusively 
from  the  model  of  the  primitive  tribe. 


128  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

moment  that  public  work  became  so  multifarious 
tbat  the  community  does  not  by  any  means  yet 
furnish  a  sum  total  of  intelligence  adequate  to  its 
requirements, — from  that  moment  it  became  evi- 
dent that  in  every  direction  much  work  must  be 
undertaken  which  would  be  badly  done.  It 
would  be  absurd,  however,  to  pretend  that  it 
was  less  well  done  now  than  formerly.  Knowl- 
edge and  expertise  have  not  been  banished  from 
the  world  by  democracy,  but  may  be  said  to 
have  obtained,  for  the  first  time,  a  place  of  public 
power,  proportioned  to  the  vastness  of  public 
needs.  The  filthy  cholera  pilgrims  at  Mecca 
have  become  the  occasion  of  researches  involv- 
ing intellectual  processes  as  subtle  and  refined 
as  went  to  the  construction  of  Plato's  Dior 
logues. 

To  such  new  expertise  women  also  can  be 
trained.  /They  are  by  no  means  necessarily  so 
"  inexperienced,"  that  their  advice  would  be  an 
"intrusion  "  on  the  counsels  of  the  State.)  Mr. 
Spencer  shows  this  incidentally  in  reference  to 
the  Family  Colonization  Loan  Society,  which 
Mrs.  Chisholm  conducted  side  by  side  with  the 
Emigration  Board.  "Under  the  government 
management  hundreds  of  emigrants  die  of  fever 
from  close  packing,  and  with  its  licence  vessels 


Woman  Suffrage,  129 

sail  which  are  the  homes  of  fraud,  brutality, 
tyranny,  and  obscenity.  Under  the  woman's, 
better  accommodation  than  ever  before  is  pro- 
vided;  it  does  not  demoralize  by  promiscuous 
crowding,  but  improve  by  mild  discipline ;  it 
does  not  pauperize  by  charity,  but  encourages 
providence  ;  it  does  not  increase  our  taxes,  but 
is  self-supporting.  The  State  is  beaten  by  a 
woman  !  "  * 

So  great  is  the  present  differentiation  of  the 
functions  of  "  provision  "  and  "  defence,"  that 
we  do  not  expect  the  same  group  of  people  to 
concern  themselves  about  both.  Merchants 
attend  to  one,  soldiers  to  the  other.  The  last 
improbability  of  war  is  supposed  to  have  been 
reached  when  a  people  has  been  characterized 
as  a  "  nation  of  shopkeepers." 
'  How,  then,  can  the  personal  incapacity  of 
women  for  "  defence "  constitute  sufficient 
ground  to  exclude  them  from  all  interest,  voice, 
and  power  in  public  affairs  ?  Is  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  identical  with  the  Brooklyn  Navy 
Yard  ?  Is  the  Produce  Exchange  manned  by 
officers  from  West  Point?  This  question  of 
"defence" — so  constantly  occurring  in  this 
discussion — is   scarcely   ever   adjusted   to    the 

*  Loc.  cit.,  p.  79. 


130  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

methods  of  making  or  declaring  war  which  are 
actually  adopted  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  A  New  England  town  meeting  does 
not  declare  war  like  the  Athenian  Ecclesia. 
Even  in  the  Roman  Republic,  decisions  of  peace 
and  war  were  not  left  to  popular  assemblies  or 
popular  vote ;  not  even  to  the  will  of  consuls 
or  commanders  of  armies.  The  fateful  choice 
rested  exclusively  with  the  Senate.  AVith  us, 
every  one  knows,  who  stops  to  think,  that  the 
proclamation  of  war,  the  ratification  of  peace, 
are  functions  reserved  for  the  Senate  and  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  removed  from 
the  control  of  even  the  State  governments.  At 
what  point,  therefore,  except  through  the  forma- 
tion of  public  opinion,  could  the  popular  vote 
of  women  influence  any  decision  for  war?  The 
presence  of  a  few  women  in  the  United  States 
Senate  is,  indeed,  a  theoretic  possibility,  but  so 
very  remote  it  need  scarcely  enter  into  the 
present  discussion. 

By  the  "intrusion  of  inexperienced  women 
into  the  councils  of  the  State,"  is  probably 
meant,  however,  the  exertion  of  such  influence 
as  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  legislature 
through  elections,  and  upon  administration, 
through   a    share    in    administrative    appoint- 


Woman  Suffrage,  131 

ments.  Legislation  and  civil  administration 
which  do  not  directly  decide  any  question  of 
war,  and  but  few  questions  of  industry,  do  un- 
doubtedly exercise  much  indirect  influence  on 
both.  The  public  opinion  behind  them  in  a 
free  state  does,  if  possible,  still  more,  and  one  of 
the  most  immediate  and  direct  results  of  woman 
suffrage  would  be  a  great  increase  in  the  contri- 
bution of  woman  to  the  formation  of  public 
opinion. 

Granted ;  but  in  what  way  can  it  then  be 
shown,  that  the  questions  so  submitted  to  legis- 
latures, administrations,  or  public  opinion — 
whether  of  peace  or  war ;  whether  of  industry, 
commerce,  social  regulations  or  public  morals ; 
whether  material  or  spiritual — do  not  concern 
women,  do  not  naturally  interest  women,  do  not 
fall  within  the  competence  of  women  exactly  to 
the  extent  to  which  they  concern,  interest,  or 
may  be  discussed  by  corresponding  bodies  of 
men? 


VII. 

PUBLIC   MEASUEES   IN   WHICH   WOMEN   MAY    BE 
INTERESTED. 

TAKE  any  series  of  measures  as  concrete 
examples :  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the 
election  of  Lincoln,  the  election  of  Mayuard,  the 
New  York  Speedway  Bill. 

Not  one  of  these  measures  could  be  said  to 
stand  in  any  tangible  relation  with  the  function 
of  men  to  provide  for  either  the  support  or  the 
defence  of  their  respective  families.  The  Mis- 
souri Compromise  was  not  brought  to  popular 
vote,  but  decided  by  Congress,  under  the  more 
or  less  remote  influence  of  public  opinion,  as  ex- 
pressed by  the  elections  of  Congressmen,  and 
through  the  public  press  while  congressional  de- 
bate was  going  on.  Through  no  other  agencies 
could  the  popular  opinion  in  the  matter  make 
itself  felt.  Does  Dr.  Curtis  mean,  that  a  well 
bred  American  husband  should  say  to  his  wife, 
"You  have  no  right  to  have  any  opinion  on 

132 


Woman  Suffrage,  133 

this  matter,  because  I  pay  our  rent,  gas,  and 
coal  bills "  ?  He  would  have  the  right,  and 
the  laws  of  the  State  of  New  York  would 
support  him  in  insisting  upon  it,  to  say  that, 
as  he  is  responsible  for  the  house  rent,  his 
wife  must  agree  to  live  where  his  judgment 
decides  is  the  best  place  to  make  money.  But 
what  law,  or  (present)  custom,  admits  that  the 
same  circumstance  gives  him  a  right  to  control 
his  wife's  opinion  ?  But  if  this  may  not  be  con- 
trolled, why  may  it  not  be  expressed,  and  ex- 
pressed effectively,  in  the  only  way  in  which  it 
can  be  effective, — through  the  ballot  ?  The  grav- 
est consequence  of  denying  the  right  to  an  effec- 
tive opinion  is,  that  this  denial  soon  at/raphies 
the  power  to  form  a  just  opinion.  The  greatest 
importance  of  democracy,  the  attribute  that 
brings  it  into  line  with  the  most  abstract  theory 
of  general  evolution,  is  its  power  to  develop 
power  in  the  masses  upon  whom  it  has  been 
conferred.  To  the  democratic  constitution  of 
Kleisthenes  the  Athenians  owed  at  once  their 
triumph  in  the  Persian  wars,  and  the  intellectual 
splendor  of  their  age  of  Pericles. 

The  popular  will  was  much  more  distinctly 
and  directly  expressed  in  the  election  of  Lincoln, 
and,  as  every  one  knew  at  the  time,  this  momen- 


134  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

tous  occasion  not  only  decided  the  choice  of  an 
individual,  but  practically  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge to  civil  war.  This  is  the  only  moment  in 
American  history,  from  the  settlement  of  James- 
town or  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  where  a 
popular  election  has  involved  such  a  decision, 
or  met  any  such  severe  and  sharply  defined 
crisis.  It  would  have  been  therefore  a  much 
more  practical  test  of  the  propriety  of  a  woman 
vote  on  questions  involving  war,  than  most  of 
the  elections  which  occurred  during  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  controversy. 

In  this  momentous  decision,  can  it  be  sug- 
gested that  women  were  not  equally  concerned 
and  interested  with  men  ?  Can  it  even  be  main- 
tained that  there  were  not  thousands  as  w^ell 
informed  on  the  questions  at  issue  as  the  men 
who  cast  their  ballots  on  that  November  day, 
1860?  Did  the  women  who  followed  their  hus- 
bands to  Kansas,  in  that  mighty  Free  Soil  emi- 
gration, know  nothing  about  it  ?  Did  the  wo- 
men who  for  thirty  years  had  sustained  a  full 
half  of  the  abolition  agitation,  know  nothing 
about  it  ?  And  what  should  have  prevented 
every  woman  from  knowing  about  it  in  Novem- 
ber, as  every  one  through  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land  did  in  April, — except  the  laws  and 


Woman  Suffrage.  135 

customs  which,  by  forcibly  excluding  them 
from  participation  in  political  affairs,  as  forci- 
bly condemned  them  to  apathy  on  great  and 
public  questions  ? 

The  election  of  Maynardin  1893  might,  from 
one  point  of  view,  be  considered  to  turn  upon 
questions  too  technical  for  any  but  lawyers  to 
understand.  It  was,  however,  thrown  upon 
public  notice  in  such  a  way  that  it  became 
a  question  of  public  morals.  Have  women  no 
interest  in  public  morals  ?  Because  their  hus- 
bands may  remain,  in  New  England  phrase, 
"good  providers,"  undei'  various  situations  of 
public  demoralization,  from  that  of  the  Tweed 
Ring  to  that  of  the  Second  Empire,  need  women 
take  no  thought  of  the  moral  standard  of  the 
community  ?  Are  those  Kentucky  women  to 
blaihe  who  have  been  exerting  themselves  to 
defeat  Bi-eckinridge  ?  Are  they  "  meddling  " 
with  what  does  not  belong  to  them  ? 

And  finally,  minute  in  its  scope  as  compared 
with  the  mighty  piece  of  legislation  which 
headed  our  list,  the  Speedway  Bill  is  yet  espe- 
cially interesting  as  an  example  of  municipal 
concern.  Did  women  have  no  interest  in  that  ? 
If  the  Park  was  not  for  women  and  children 
for  whom  was  it  intended  ?     Why  then  should 


136  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

they  not  have  been  permitted  to  join,  even  more 
directly  than  they  did,  in  the  successful  effort  to 
resist  the  shameless,  though  petty  depredation  ? 

A  remark  stands  ready  at  hand,  in  reply  to 
all  that  has  just  been  said.  All  these  measures 
were  carried  out  by  men,  v^ithout  the  aid  of 
women.  What  advantage  then  would  it  have 
been  for  them  to  have  lent  or  rather  intruded 
their  aid  ?  The  Missouri  Compromise  was  made ; 
the  Missouri  Compromise  was  repealed ;  Lincoln 
was  elected  and  re-elected ;  the  little  Speed- 
way ferment  formed  and  subsided.  The  women 
were  never  "  in  it  " ;  but  what  was  the  harm  ? 
If  women  were  unintelligent  or  indifferent  in 
these  matters,  the  less  they  had  to  do  with  them 
the  better.  If  they  were  intelligent  enough  to 
sit  at  home  and  think  them  all  out  for  them- 
selves, they  could  only  applaud  the  succesl^  of 
the  exertions  of  their  "  mates  "  and  ^'  providers." 
"  Qui  fecit  per  aliitm,  fecit  per  se^ 

The  trouble  is  that,  under  such  adjustment, 
the  women,  precisely  like  men  in  similar  circum- 
stances, who  have  no  chance  to  do*,  acquire  no 
power  to  think,  and  the  power  to  think  is  the 
ultimate  though  unconscious  aim  of  all  demo- 
cratic activities.  In  a  democratic  republic,  the 
Public  Life  is  the  visible  expression  of  the  Man 


Woman  Suffrage,  137 

thinking,  to  whom  each  individual  man  must 
incessantly  return.  ^'Cut  off  from  that,  the 
farmer  becomes  the  plough,  the  sailor  the  rope, 
the  thinker  the  bookworm  "  *;  the  woman,  we 
might  add,  the  sex.  This  is  the  meaning  of  our 
American  State.  It  is  not  merely  a  congeries 
of  households,  whose  male  representatives  cross 
their  thresholds  in  the  morning  to  find  some- 
thing to  eat  for  their  families,  and  pay  taxes  to 
maintain  the  police.  It  is  a  vast,  real,  living 
organism,  with  most  complex  functions,  most 
subtle  yet  mighty  vital  processes,  most  glorious 
of  vital  powers. 

"  Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a  noble  and  puissant 
nation  rousing  herself  like  a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and 
stroking  her  invincible  locks  :  methinks  I  see  her  as 
an  eagle  mewing  her  mighty  youth,  and  kindling  her  un- 
dazzled  eyes  at  the  full  midday  beam  ;  .  .  .  while 
the  whole  noise  of  timorous  and  flocking  birds,  with 
those  also  that  love  the  twilight,  flutter  about  amazed 
at  what  she  means."  f 

This  organism  cannot  be  constructed  like  a 
brick  wall,  in  segments  of  caste  or  class,  adjacent, 
superposed  according  to  long  traditions  of  place 
or  etiquette  of  precedence.  Its  elements  must 
be  individual  cells,  grouping  themselves  into 

*  Emerson,  American  Scholar.  f  Areopagitica. 


138  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

organs  according  to  their  individual  affinities 
and  capacities — tlie  microscopic  function  of 
each,  ennobled  by  its  relationship  to  the  whole ; 
the  healthful  activity  of  the  whole,  insured  by 
the  punctual  action  of  these  parts. 

Confessedly,  in  embracing  in  this  conception 
women,  we  do  introduce  a  change ;  a  change 
which,  though  in  itself  purely  ideal,  underlies 
all  the  practical  issues  now  in  dispute.  In  this 
essentially  modern  conception,  women  also  are 
brought  into  direct  relations  with  the  State,  in- 
dependent of  their  "  mates  "  or  their  "  brood." 
Yet  is  this  audacious  proceeding  justified  by 
one  simple  fact — women  already  stand  in  this 
relation. 

It  is  probably  on  this  account  that  Mr.  Gold- 
win  Smith  declares  that  woman  suffrage  aims 
at  such  a  "  sexual  revolution  "  as  must  cause 
the  "  dissolution  of  the  family."  The  suffrage 
claim  does  not  aim  at  this :  it  seeks  only  to 
formulate,  recognize,  and  define  the  revolution 
already  effected,  yet  which  leaves  the  family 
intact.  The  P atria  Potestas  is  gond;  a  man  has 
lost,  first,  the  right  to  kill  his  own  son ;  then 
the  right  to  order  the  marriage  of  his  daughter ; 
then  the  right  to  absorb  the  property  of  his 
wife.   Nevertheless,  he  survives,  and  the  family, 


Woman  SMffrazeT^'^^S^SMib,  ^\  39 

shorn  of  its  portentous  rights,  bids  fair  in  Amer- 
ica to  remain  the  happiest  of  all  conceivable 
natural  institutions;  more  profound  than  soci- 
ety, so  immeasurably  deeper  than  politics,  that 
the  fortunate  wife,  daughter,  or  sister  is  puz- 
zled when  the  two  are  mentioned  in  the  same 
breath. 

A  natural  institution  reposes  on  the  facts  of 
nature,  and  is  limited  by  them.  When  the 
natural  right  of  women  to  maintenance  is 
based  on  maternity,  not  only  firmly,  but  exclu- 
sively, many  practical  consequences  will  gradu- 
ally ensue.  Women  married  at  thirty,  and 
liable  to  be  left  widows  between  forty  and 
fifty,  will  not  consider  their  entire  lives  summed 
up  within  fifteen  years;  will  prepare  for  self- 
support  and  other  activities  both  before  and 
after.  Still  more  so  the  women  who  never 
marry.  Childless  women  will  recognize  that 
their  pecuniary  dependence  on  their  husbands 
rests  on  an  entirely  different  basis  from  that  of 
mothers.  In  many  cases  they  would  choose 
that  such  dependence  should  not  exist  at  all. 
In  others  the  tendency,  now  alleged  to  be  so 
widespread,  to  avoid  maternity  would  be 
checked ;  as  in  the  ancient  cruel  times  when  a 
woman   could    be   divorced   for    childlessness. 


140  Woman  Suffrage, 

Maternity  itself  will  be  recognized  to  be 
though  in  one  aspect  so  intensely  personal,  yet 
in  another,  a  social  function,  with  the  very 
widest  social  consequences.  Thus  it  is  pre- 
cisely the  relation  in  which  begins  that  "  close 
association  with  her  mate,"  which  is  supposed 
to  exclude  the  woman  from  all  social  associa- 
tion, which,  more  philosphically  understood, 
cannot  fail  to  bring  women  into  the  widest, 
most  fundamental,  and  most  direct  relation 
with  the  State. 

Representative  government  did  not  originate 
in  America ;  but,  for  modern  times,  individual 
representation  did.  The  division  into  the  Three 
Estates,  to  which  allusion  has  already  been 
made,  as  affected  in  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  completed  the  transformation, 
gradually  carried  on  during  preceding  centu- 
ries, of  the  basis  of  representation  from  individ- 
uals, to  that  of  classes,  groups,  orders,  interests, 
organizations.  This  conception  of  representation 
has  become  so  profoundly  imbedded  in  the 
English  mind,  that  a  franchise  reposing  on  a 
manhood  basis  does,  almost  to  this  very  day, 
seem  to  Englishmen  too  "  monotonous,"  or  too 
"French!" 


VIII. 

THE    AMEEICAN    DISCOVERY — WEBSTER     AISTD 
MADISON. 

THE  Three  Estates  were  never  organized  in 
America :  tlie  general  equality  of  social 
conditions  forbade.  Yet  the  theory  and  practice 
of  individual  representation,  of  manhood  suffrage, 
did  not  arise  simply  in  this  historic  situation. 
It  is  logically  traceable  to  a  great  new  Idea, 
which  is  literally  at  the  very  central  core  of  the 
American  Union,  and  without  which  that  Fed- 
eral Union  could  never  have  been  founded. 
The  discovery  of  this  "brand  new  idea,"  as  it 
was  at  first  called,  solved  the  apparently  insolu- 
ble difficulty  of  co-adjusting  State  governments 
with  a  national  existence.  The  discovery  is 
that  the  national  government  should  act  upon 
individuals,  and  not  on  States, 

**In  February,  1783,  Pelatiah  Webster  published  at 
Philadelphia  a  tract,  in  which  he  advocated  a  national 
assembly  with  power,  not  only  to  enact  the  laws,  but  to 

141 


142  '^Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

enforce  them  on  individuals  as  well  as  on  States.  A  year 
later  this  tract  was  followed  by  another  of  the  same  tenor 
by  Noah  Webster,  in  which  he  proposed  '  a  new  system  of 
government  which  should  act,  not  on  the  States,  but 
directly  on  individuals.' "  * 

So  great  was  tlie  force  of  this  idea  that  it  not 
only  made  the  American  Union,  but  it  swept 
the  dwelling  of  the  new  republic  clean  of  the 
vast  conglomerate  of  groups  and  institutions, 
which  in  England  everywhere  intervene  be- 
tween the  State  and  the  individual.  The  com- 
plicated balance  of  franchise  rights,  which  in 
England  still  persists  in  the  midst  of  nearly 
universal  suffrage,  and  which  justifies  itself  by 
historic  inheritance,  could  not  have  existed  on 
this  continent,  where  the  idea  of  the  individual 
had  become  necessary  and  fundamental.  If 
State  governments  were  not  to  interpose  be- 
tween the  National  Power  and  the  men  of 
the  State,  certainly  no  lesser  organization  of 
class  or  caste,  or  family,  or  association  with 
savings  banks,  or  universities,  or  poor-rates, 
or  "ancient  rights"  could  do'so.  The  "com- 
pound householder "  and  the  laborious  discus- 
sions and  mathematical  calculations  to  which  he 

*  Madison  Papers^  vol.  ii.,  p.  708,  quoted  by   Hannis   Taylor, 
loc,  cit. 


Woman  Suffrage,  143 

gave  rise,  *  must  always  have  been  as  impos- 
sible in  the  United  States  as  a  reanimated 
megatherium.  We  believe  that  much  of  the 
"  straightness  and  lucidity,"  which  Matthew 
Arnold  attributes  to  the  American  mind,  is  due 
exactly  tcTthe  fact  that  at  the  moment  of  the  birth 
of  the  American  Nation,  a  straight  path  was  made 
right  from  the  Central  Power  to  the  ultimate 
units  of  the  State,  and  no  deviations  were  per- 
mitted through  interposed  organizations,  ready 
to  encrust  and  complicate  with  every  year  of  time. 
Ennobled  by  this  direct  radiation  from  the  Cen- 
tral Power,  each  unit  became  a  man,  and  each 
man  a  unit.  The  need  of  "  making  a  voter  out 
of  a  man  "  by  long  and  intricate  and  gradual 
process  was  abolished  in  advance.  Manhood 
suffrage  in  America  may  seem  to  result,  his- 
torically, from  the  general  average  equality  of 
social  conditions  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
thirteen  States.  But  it  may  also  be  deduced  as 
a  philosophical  necessity  from  the  Idea  of  Indi- 
vidualism, which  became  the  core  of  the  Fed- 
eral Union. 

This  idea,  at  first  suggested  only  for  men, 
has,  little  by  little,  spread  to  women  also.  In 
law,  the  family,  the  father,    the  husband,  no 

*In  the  English  debates  on  the  Reform  Bills  for  1 866-1 867. 


144  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

longer  intervenes  between  the  woman  and  the 
State ;  no  organization  complicates  the  direct 
relation.  ^.Women  pay  their  own  taxes,  both 
State  and  Federal :  direct,  when  these  are  im- 
posed ;  indirect,  whenever  they  are  supporting 
themselves  and  buying  commodities.  *  They  ap- 
pear in  the  law  courts  in  their  own  persons,  not 
by  the  intermediary  of  husband,  guardian,  or 
trustees.  They  are  directly  liable  for  all  the 
engagements  they  may  enter  into  in  their  own 
names,  and  their  contracts  will  be  enforced 
directly  by  the  State  upon  them  or  upon  which- 
ever party  in  their  contract  may  be  delinquent. 
Only  when,  in  incurring  household  expenses,  or 
personal  expenses  while  at  the  head  of  a  married 
family,  and  when  they  are  therefore  presumed 
to  act  as  the  agents  of  their  husbands,  are 
women  in  New  York  placed  in  any  different 
relation  with  the  State  from  men. 

Thus,  women  are  really  recognized  as  individ- 
uals, in  the  same  way  as  men ;  so  that  the  pres- 
sure to  obtain  all  individual  rights  for  those 
who  already  have  all  individjial  liabilities  and 
responsibilities,  is  so  logical  as  to  become  well, 
nigh  irresistible.  In  a  second  and  more  symbolic 
sense,  the  modern,  American,  New  York  indi- 
vidualism of  women  has  a  peculiarly  interesting 


Woman  Suffrage,  145 

significance.  The  habit  of  thought,  which  has 
removed  men  from  the  grasp  of  lesser  groups 
and  organizations  and  brought  their  personali- 
ties into  immediate  relation  with  the  State; 
and  not  only  with  the  domiciliary  State,  but 
with  the  whole  Federal  Union,  and  this  not 
successively,  but  simultaneously ;  so  that  a  man 
is  at  the  same  moment  a  citizen  of  New  York 
and  an  American ;  this  same  conception,  en- 
dorsed by  actual  fact,  justifies  the  emancipation 
of  women  from  their  exclusive  classification 
within  the  limits  of  the  family,  and  declares 
that  while  they  are  members  of  that,  they  are, 
coincidently,  members,  citizens  of  the  State. 

But  this  view  reverses  the  entire  Roman-law 
view  of  the  status  of  women.  Therefore,  ac- 
cording to  Goldwin  Smith  (and  some  others),  it 
determines  the  "dissolution  of  the  family." 
Be  it  noted,  however,  that  the  suffrage — ^which 
has  not  yet  been  conferred — is  not  responsible 
for  these  pangs  of  dissolution,  and  the  latter, 
moreover,  do  not  seem  to  be  the  pangs  of 
death  ! 

Though  the  suffrage  be  not  the  cause  of  this 
change,  it  is  certainly  irresistibly  suggested  as 
the  immediate  sequence.  A  direct  relation  with 
the  State  as  a  unit,  in  a  State  where  such  direct 


146  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

relation  everywhere,  and  always,  over  vast 
ranges  of  territory  and  througli  enormous 
masses  of  population,  carries  with  it  political 
representation  and  political  rights, — how  can  it 
fail  to  do  so  in  this  case  also  ?  Women  have 
hitherto  been  deprived  of  political  right  and 
representation,  precisely  for  the  reason  Dr. 
Curtis  alleges :  the  State  was  constituted  ex- 
clusively by  the  men  outside  a  certain  pale, 
and  dealt  with  those  within  almost  exclusively 
through  the  intermediary  of  the  others.  This 
being  no  longer  the  case,  and  many  illusions 
having  been  destroyed  as  to  the  reality  of  pre- 
viously alleged  representation  and  protection, 
no  excuse  remains  for  longer  deferring  the  right 
of  representation  accorded  to  other  units  of  the 
American  Union. 

When  the  theory  of  individualism  has  once 
been  realized  fully  in  fact,  women  would  lose 
that  tendency  "  to  work  apart  from  other  mated 
females."  which  Dr.  Curtis,  no  less  than  Goethe 
recognizes. 

Dr.  Curtis  has  defined  this  tetidency  and  its 
cause  with  admirable  terseness  and  precision  ; 
he  has  failed,  however,  to  show  why  it  should 
be  considered  admirable.  Indubitably  it  lies 
at  the  root  of  the  entire  anti-suffrage  movement 


Woman  Suffrage.  i^.y 

among  women,  of  whom  large  numbers  liave 
never  been  accustomed  to  think  of  themselves 
as  "gregarious  animals,  capable  of  concerted 
action  for  mutual  advantage."  To  what  is  fe- 
male jealousy  due,  so  far  as  it  is  a  mental  habit 
and  not  justified  by  the  occasion,  except  the  deep- 
rooted  instinct  which  contemplates  all  women 
exclusively  from  their  possible  relation  to  some 
one  man  ?  In  this  way,  at  present,  is  often 
curtailed  the  usefulness  of  much  philanthropic 
exertion  among  women,  the  effectiveness  of 
many  advisory  boards.  The  women  on  these 
boards,  like  to  advise  men,  who  are  not  thereby 
seriously  embarrassed,  but  they  make  little  effort 
to  establish  a  situation  in  which  their  advice 
could  be  carried  out  by  other  women.  Like 
the  anxious  housewife,  who  avoids  engaging  a 
competent  housekeeper,  lest  her  comeliness  prove 
too  attractive  to  the  master  of  the  house,  they 
often  prefer  to  do  it  all  themselves,  or  to  leave 
it  undone. 

Admirable  in  its  conception  as  was  the  State 
Charities  Aid  Association,  there  is  a  striking 
contrast  between  the  efficiency  of  its  initial 
work,  the  reformation  of  Bellevue  Hospital, 
and  anything,  for  instance,  which  has  been 
effected  on  the  Islands.     In  the  first  case  the 


148  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

reform  was  re-enforced  by  a  fruitful  new  idea,— 
a  Training  School  for  Nurses  was  established, — 
/  the  first  in  the  country.  By  this  a  new  sphere 
/  of  action  was  opened  to  women,  who  rushed 
into  it ;  their  ambition,  self-interest,  and  enthu- 
siasm were  enlisted  to  carry  out  the  work  which 
had  been  planned.  The  result  was  an  unquali- 
fied success.  Where  elsewhere  has  such  a 
success  been  scored  ? 

That  women  themselves  offer  a  field,  a  large 
field,  a  field  as  large  as  half  the  population  of 
the  world  for  the  activities  of  women,  seems  to 
be  one  of  the  youngest  ideas  of  recorded  time. 
That  women  can  be  the  pupils,  patients,  clients, 
and  customers  of  women,  as  well  as  their  ser- 
vants and  patronized  objects  of  charity,  is  just 
beginning  to  be  suspected.  Following  along 
this  line  of  thought,  it  is  easy  to  foresee  women 
as  captains  in  industry  as  well  as  beneficiaries, 
interesting  themselves  to  ameliorate  the  lot  of 
women  industrials,  who  have  become  something 
else  to  them  than  only  the  employees  of  their 
own  husbands  or  fathers.  It  is  tasy  to  foresee 
women,  in  their  political  relations  with  the 
State,  undertaking  to  guide  and  influence  the 
action  of  other  women,  who  also  hold  political 
relations  with   the  State,  but  whose  relative. 


Woman  Suffrage,  149 

personal  or  social  dependence  persists.  They 
may  begin  in  their  own  kitchens  ;  they  may  end 
by  creating  political  forces  which  shall  often 
serve  to  counterpoise  the  votes  of  ignorant  or 
interested  men. 

"  Equal  rights  for  all  is  only  equal  rights  in 
the  same  thing  for  all  the  similarly  conditioned 
as  to  the  same  thing."  True,  and  the  "  same 
thing  "  is  vital  representation  in  a  social  organ- 
ism where  all  elements,  whose  wants,  ideas,  and 
will  are  not  represented,  are  only  socially  half 
alive.  The  "  similarly  conditioned  "  are,  in  our 
existing  situation,  any  adult  male  who  is  of  sane 
mind  and  not  an  actual  inmate  of  a  penal  insti- 
tution. Among  these  are  thousands,  most  "  in- 
experienced" in  regard  to  the  questions  they 
help  more  or  less  to  decide  ;  thousands  who  are 
"  irresponsible,  since  under  no  circumstances 
would  they  be  required  to  enforce  the  measures 
that  might  be  decided  upon  by  their  advice  ;  " 
and  "  different,"  if  not  "  organically,"  yet  so 
markedly,  in  nationality,  inheritance,  education, 
training,  intelligence,  circumstance,  and  point 
of  view,  that  the  mental  differences  between 
the  American  man  and  his  wife  shrink  to 
nothing  in  comparison. 

And  whatever  peevish  carpers  may  assert,  it 


1 50  Woman   Suffrage, 

is  not  true  that  tlie  equal  political  representa- 
tion of  this  vast  mass  of  the  inexperienced,  the 
irresponsible,  and  the  different  has  worked 
badly ;  has  not  indeed  worked  better  than  any 
other  system  hitherto  devised.  The  system 
simply  removes  previous  shackles,  opens  un- 
bounded opportunity  to  all  forces  to  contend 
together  in  the  public  arena  until  the  strongest 
prevail.  Vice  gets  no  more  chance  than  under 
any  other  system.  But  if  poverty,  ignorance, 
and  vulgarity  have  more  "  show,"  nothing  is 
done  to  detract  from  the  natural  force  of  wealth, 
knowledge,  and  refinement.  If  the  force  of 
these  decline,  if  their  rightful  superiority  abate, 
it  is  from  internal  decay,  not  from  external 
pressure;  and  the  remedy  must  be  found  in 
forces  deeper  than  political  system.  Our 
scholars  in  politics  do  not  at  present  write 
the  Areopagitica ;  but  the  times  are  perchance 
not  strenuous  enough  to  engender  such  high 
thought. 

In  this  interregnum  of  lax  and  facile  time, 
the  one  new,  great,  powerful  thought  that  has 
moved  swiftly  to  the  front,  is  that  of  the 
enfranchisement  of  women. 

Let  the  thought  achieve  its  own  realization. 


IX. 

THE   EXISTING    SITUATION. 

AFTEE.  all,  it  is  not  a  theory  but  a  situation 
which  confronts  us.  What  is  it  ? 
In  New  York  State,  according  to  the  census 
of  1890,  there  is  a  total  population  of  5,997,853, 
of  which  3,020,960  are  female ;  2,976,893  are 
male.  The  proportion  of  women  to  men  in 
the  State  is,  therefore,  as  1-^  to  1,  or  sensibly 
equal.  The  slight  excess  (44,067)  of  female 
population  in  the  State  is  counterbalanced  for 
the  whole  United  States  by  an  excess  of  males. 
For  the  whole  country  there  are  32,067,880 
males  and  30,554,370  females ;  an  excess  of 
males  of  1,513,510.  This  excess  is  mainly  due 
to  immigration  ;  since,  for  many  past  decades, 
the  female  immigrants  from  Europe  have  been 
annually  less  than  the  number  of  males.  At 
the  last  count,  June  30,  1893,  there  had  been 
during  the  preceding  year  only  four  females  to 
eleven  males  among  the  immigrants."  "^     In  the 

*  statistics  Bearing  on  Equal  Suffrage,  Adele  M.  Fielde.     Suffrage 
Leaflets,  nth  Assembly  District  Committee. 

151 


152  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

State  of  New  York,  whicli  alone  concerns  us, 
tlie  men  of  voting  age  numbered  1,769,649.  As 
the  total  female  population  was  sensibly  equal 
to  the  male,  being  only  -gig-  in  excess  ;  it  may  be 
assumed  that  there  are  an  equal  number  of 
women  of  voting  age. 

This  number  of  the  total  female  population, 
in  round  numbers,  three  million,  corresponds 
pretty  closely  with  the  number  of  women  in  the 
entire  country  engaged  in  "  gainful  occupa- 
tions." The  imperfect  census  of  1890  gives 
no  tables  of  occupations.  But  the  census  of 
1880  gives  the  number  of  women  in  all  classes 
of  occupations  as  2,647,157,  a  number  which  has 
certainly  increased  to  over  three  million  in  the 
jlast  fourteen  years.  In  1779,  in  the  middle  year 
pf  the  Kevolutionary  War,  the  white  population 
k  the  United  States  was  about  2,175,000.* 
This  number,  two  and  one  half  million,  seems 
to  mark  the  point  at  which  an  impulse  for  inde- 
pendence becomes  urgent  if  not  irresistible. 

The  proposal  to  enfranchise  (in  round  num- 
bers) 1,500,000  persons  in  a  totai  adult  popula- 
tion of  three  million,  invites  the  inquiry : 

1st.  What  precedents  exist  for  such  a  measure 
of  enfranchisement  ? 

*  Fiske,  Critical  Period  of  American  History,  p.  I02. 


Woman  Suffrage,  153 

2d.  To  what  extent  would  the  new  voters  be 
homogeneous  with  the  old,  or  to  what  extent 
would  their  heterogeneity  constitute  a  disturb- 
ing element  ? 

3d.  What  special  circumstances  of  religion, 
nationality,  social  condition,  or  civil  status 
would  require  consideration  in  respect  to  such 
newly  enfranchised  persons  ? 

4th.  What  circumstances  connected  with 
their  previously  unenfranchised  condition  could 
be  presumed  to  be  influential  after  enfranchise- 
ment? 

5th.  Whether,  apart  from  the  general  advan- 
tage of  public  representation — now  firmly 
recognized  as  a  general  principle  in  every 
modern  State, — any  special  advantages  would  be 
likely  to  arise  from  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
particular  class  now  claiming  the  suffrage. 

In  discussions  on  Woman  Suffrage,  the  pre- 
cedents alleged  are  usually  those  of  Wyoming] 
and  Colorado,  where  full  suffrage  for  womei 
now  exists;  New  Zealand,  where  full  parlia- 
mentary suffrage  has  just  been  granted  t( 
women ;  municipal  suffrage,  as  it  exists  in  Eng^ 
land,  Canada,  and  Kansas ;  or  school  suffrage,] 
as  it  exists  in  twenty-three  States  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union. 


154  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

The  important  facts  about  the  suffrage  in 
Wyoming,  Colorado,  and  New  Zealand  are: 
1st.  That  the  suffrage  is  there  complete,  and  not 
partial.  It  does  not  differentiate  women  from 
other  voters,  and  in  the  American  States  pre- 
supposes no  property  or  other  special  qualifica- 
tions, such  as  are  associated  with  school  suffrage. 
2d.  Under  these  circumstances,  during  the 
twenty-five  years  the  franchise  has  been  exer- 
cised in  Wyoming,  and  at  the  single  elections  held 
under  it  in  Colorado  and  New  Zealand, — the 
woman  vote  has  been  called  out  very  fully.  In 
the  recently  enfranchised  States,  the  enthusiasm, 
at  least  on  this  one  occasion,  has  been  immense. 
3d.  The  extremely  sparse  population  of  Wyo- 
ming, which  could  not  fairly  be  said  to  justify 
its  admission  as  a  State,  is  said  to  throw  its  case 
out  of  comparison  with  a  much  more  thickly 
populated  State,  as  New  York.  Yet  for  the 
philosophers  who  are  always  endeavoring  to 
study  the  woman  question  in  outline,  in  type, 
in  primitive  beginnings,  the  relative  simplicity 
of  this  situation  should  render  it  as  valuable 
as  village  communities  and  town  meetings  have 
been  found  by  the  student  of  political  evolution. 

4th.  In  one  respect,  contradictory  reports  have 
reached  us  from  Wyoming,  or  more  specifically 


Woman  Suffrage.  155 

from  Cheyenne.  It  has  been  asserted  that  in 
cities  still  bearing  the  imprint  of  mining  towns, 
the  proportion  of  women  of  the  courtesan  class 
Avas  relatively  large,  and  that  their  vote  had 
been  handled  by  interested  election  agents, — in 
the  same  way  as  the  Italian  vote  in  New  York 
is  handled  by  the  padrone.  If  this  be  true,  this 
section  of  the  Wyoming  vote  must  be  simply 
compared  with  the  Italian  and  other  controlled 
vote  in  New  York ; — a  form  of  rude  and  primi- 
tive suffrage,  that  constitutes  a  sort  of  survival 
of  antique  forms  in  the  midst  of  civilization,  and 
cannot  but  be  destined  to  disappear.  It  is  sim- 
ply impossible  to  compare  this  vote  with  the  vote 
of  women  of  any  other  class, — and  even  if  it 
were  true  that  all  such  women  voted,  their  total 
number  in  the  city  of  New  York  is  not  regis- 
tered as  more  than  40,000,  out  of  a  total  popu- 
lation of  between  1,500,000  and  2,000,000. 

In  another  place,  the  argument  from  this 
special  possibility — which  so  strangely  jostles 
upon  sentimental  arguments  of  such  a  precisely 
opposite  character, — has  been  considered  from 
another  point  of  view.  At  this  place  we  can 
note,  notwithstanding  the  hysteric  excitement 
which  has  been  displayed  in  some  quarters  in 
regard  to  this  topic,  that  other  information  de- 


156  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

clares  tlie  alleged  reports  are  not  true.  The 
wholesome  law  which  compels  every  one  to  regis- 
ter at  a  certain  time  before  voting,  acts  as  a 
deterrent  upon  those,  and  especially  upon 
women,  who  do  not  wish  their  names  or  calling 
to  be  forced  into  publicity.  This  fact  is  itself 
sufficient  to  meet  the  immediate  apprehension. 
The  changes  in  the  entire  situation  which  the 
future  may  bring  about  are  too  remote,  and  the 
considerations  involved  too  delicate  and  com- 
plex for  present  discussion. 

Certainly,  however,  if  any  attitude  of  mind 
can  be  considered  fantastic,  it  is  that  by  which 
a  professedly  sober  man  can  call  himself  "  out- 
raged "  at  the  thought  that  a  woman  of  his 
family  should  deposit  a  vote  at  the  polls  the 
moment  before  or  after  a  woman  of  this  "  class  " 
might  by  chance  have  done  the  same.  This 
form  of  social  "  contamination "  is  certainly 
most  attenuated. 

5th.  The  situation  in  Colorado  was  specialized 
by  the  insertion  of  woman-suffrage  "  planks  "  in 
the  platforms  of  the  county  conventions,  by  the 
Republicans  and  also  the  Populist  party.  In 
New  York  State  no  such  party  endorsement  of 
woman  suffrage  has  ever  been  obtained,  and  on 
that  account  Miss  Anthony  seems  to  think  that 


Woman   Suffrage,  157 

New  York  cannot  be  carried  in  its  favor.  How- 
ever, in  1892,  the  New  York  State  Legislature, 
at  that  time  with  a  Democratic  majority,  not 
only  brought  to  its  third  reading  a  bill  in  favor 
of  woman  suffrage,  but  carried  it  through  the 
Assembly.  Under  the  circumstances  such  a 
vote  could  only  be  looked  upon  as  a  declaration 
of  opinion ;  but  as  such  it  was  certainly  sig- 
nificant. 

6th.  One  other  fact  from  Colorado  is  very 
interesting.  As  soon  as  the  constitutional 
amendment  had  been  carried,  and  the  first 
election  held,  women,  having  "received  their 
baptism  of  fire,"  began,  all  over  the  country,  to 
organize  clubs  for  the  serious  study  of  political 
institutions.  Is  it  on  record  that  any  other  class 
of  newly  enfranchised  voters  ever  did  the  same  ? 

In  New  Zealand,  the  remarkable  fact  of  the 
election  was  that  the  women,  having  been  en- 
franchised by  one  party,  voted  chiefly  for  th( 
candidate  of  the  other. 

This  same  independence  was  also  shown  a1 
the  first  municipal  elections  held  in  Kansas.  T( 
the  women's  vote  was  largely  due  the  defeat  of  th( 
Populists  and  the  Republican  victory,  althougl 
the  Populists  had  been  mainly  instrumental  i] 
the  enfranchisement  of  women.     Several  noted 


158  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

but  undesirable  "leaders,"  among  others  Mrs. 
Lease,  were  "  snowed  under  "  by  the  vote  of  the 
women. 

Nothing  could  be  of  better  augury  for  the 
future  of  woman  suffrage  than  indications  of  its 
andependence  of  political  parties.  Whatever  be 
the  function  of  parties  in  a  system  of  represen- 
tative government,  it  is  evident  that  much  of 
'  their  machinery  is  excessively  clumsy ;  much  of 
their  action  requires  to  be  supplemented  by 
Sother  than  strict  party  motives.  The  assump- 
Vion  that  any  one  party  is  always  right,  even  on 
issues  other  than  that  in  which  it  originated,  is 
theoretically  absurd.  Party  allegiance  must 
usually,  in  modern  times,  vnth  their  nicely  com- 
plex issues,  be  a  matter  of  expediency,  and  may 
be  usefully  traversed  by  many  other  expedien- 
cies, such  as  voters  less  trained  to  party  disci- 
pline would  be  most  likely  to  suggest. 

Municipal  suffrage  in  England  and  Canada 
constitutes  very  little  precedent  for  our  proposed 
situation. 

"  In  the  northern  countries  of  the  Germanic  world,  the 
communal  right  .  .  .  accepts,  as  the  qualification, 
possession  of  real  property,  without  regard  to  the  per- 
son. .  .  .  Property  has  become  the  exclusive  basis 
of  the  right,  the  personality  of  the  owner  is  completely 
disregarded,  the  difference  between  the  sexes  is  thence- 


Woman   Suffrage,  159 

forth  an  idle  distinction.  Among  Germans,  Anglo- 
Saxons,  Scandinavians,  where  communal  right  has  a  real 
as  opposed  to  a  personal  basis,  woman  is  admitted  to  the 
enjoyment  of  it.  .  .  .  Therefore,  while  granting  the 
communal  right  to  women  (as  well  as  to  companies  and 
corporations),  by  virtue  of  their  property  right,  care  has 
been  taken  to  limit  it  to  that  sphere  of  local  self-govern- 
ment which  is  devoid  of  all  political  character,  and  con- 
cerned chiefly  with  the  administration  of  the  economic 
interests  of  the  place.     .     .     . 

"  In  1888,  women  rate-payers  were  included  among  the 
electors  to  the  county  councils,  but  were  not  considered 
eligible  for  election."  * 

This  obstinate  restriction  of  franchise  right 
to  property,  ingeniously  enucleates  the  cardinal, 
vital  value  of  the  suffrage.  Such  franchise  does 
not  enhance — it  depresses  the  dignity  of  the 
human  unit  who  exercises  it,  not  in  virtue  of 
himself,  but  of  the  non-human  thing  to  which 
he  is  appended.  The  value  in  the  development 
of  the  effective  force  of  persons  of  these  local, 
communal,  municipal  rights  of  suffrage  seems  to 
increase  the  nearer  we  mount  to  their  orio^in. 
When  land  ownership  meant  freedom,  and  the 
landless  were  dependent  cultivators,  laets,f  and 
slaves,  the  vote  of  the  freeman  was  a  sign  of 

*  Ostrogorski,  loc.  cit.  pp.  90  and  loi, 

t  Kemble,  Saxons  in  England,  quoted  by  Hannis  Taylor,  loc,  cit, 
p.  126. 


1 6o  '*  Common  Sense  "  applied  to 

personal  dignity,  as  well  as  property.  Now  that 
there  are  freemen  who  do  not  own  land — free- 
men who  have  more  political  rights  than  some 
of  the  persons  (the  women)  who  do  own  land, 
— the  vote  accorded  to  such  possession  has  been 
emptied  of  half  its  value.  The  refusal  to  extend 
Parliamentary  suffrage  to  women  who  are  pos- 
sessed of  municipal  suffrage,  does  not  mean,  as 
Americans  are  apt  to  suppose,  that  women  are 
counted  able  to  judge  about  the  small  concerns 
of  a  town,  but  not  about  Imperial  issues.  It 
means  that  women  are  still  not  counted  able  to 
exercise  an  independent  judgment  at  all,  and, 
therefore,  are  to  remain  counted  out  when  this 
is  called  for ;  but  that  the  property  to  which  they 
happen  to  belong,  and  which  requires  represen- 
tation, must  not  be  deprived  of  this  on  account 
of  an  entangling  female  alliance. 

This  is  the  very  antipodes  of  the  Democratic 
doctrine,  perhaps  also  somewhat  excessive,  that 
a  man  requires  representation  so  much  that  he 
must  not  be  deprived  of  it  on  account  of  the 
accident  of  being  unable  to  read  and  write. 

Absurd  doctrine,  from  some  points  of  view. 
Yet  what  other  has  ever  been  able  to  secure  for 
every  one  the  opportunity  to  learn  how  to  read 
and  write  ? 


Woman   Suffrage,  i6i 

For  the  above  reasons,  it  is  plain  that  the 
proposal  often  broached,  indeed  submitted,  to 
many  of  our  State  Legislatures  to  confer  mu- 
nicipal suffrage  upon  women  as  a  partial  and 
tentative  measure,  is  based  on  a  misapprehen- 
sion of  English  precedent.  Municipal  suffrage 
in  Kansas  demands  no  property  qualification, 
and  its  exercise  therefore  does  not  differ  in  the 
least  from  that  required  in  a  Presidential  elec- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  as  the  municipal  con- 
cerns of  New  York  and  other  large  cities  offer 
at  present  the  most  complex  and  perplexing 
problems  with  which  the  present  time  has  to 
grapple,  municipal  suffrage  is  not  the  simplest 
task  to  be  learned  first,  but  precisely  the  most 
difficult  and  most  arduous.  The  "vote  that 
comes  down  to  the  Harlem  River "  now  often 
serves  to  correct  the  local  aberrations  of  the 
New  York  vote.  Such  correction  would  be 
needed  as  much  for  the  vote  of  women  as  of 
men. 

School  suffrage  is  a  form  of  partial  suffrage 
which  might,  much  more  rationally  than  mu- 
nicipal suffrage,  be  used  as  a  preliminary  tenta- 
tive form  of  enfranchisement,  where  a  prelimi- 
nary experiment  were  deemed  essential.  It 
necessitates   very  properly  either  some  educa- 


1 62  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

tional  and  some  property  qualification,  or  some 
special  relation  to  the  children  going  to  school. 
The  pertinence  of  the  influence  of  women  in 
school  matters  is  to-day  so  generally  admitted, 
the  mental  change  since  1821  is  so  enormous, 
that  men  generally  say :  "  Yes,  women  should 
vote  for  school  officers,  and  be  elected  to  School 
Boards  " ;  and  women  continually  sign  petitions 
for  this  privilege,  till  startled  by  the  discovery 
that  it  also  means  something  else.  It  means, 
however,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  according  to 
the  decision  of  its  Supreme  Court,  that  women 
can  only  enjoy  this  privilege  thoroughly  if 
empowered  by  constitutional  amendment  to 
vote  for  all  officers  as  well  as  for  School  Com- 
missioner. 

Further,  in  the  great  cities  of  New  York  and 
Brooklyn,  where  the  Mayor  appoints  the  Boards 
of  Education,  and  the  School  Trustees  are  ap- 
pointed by  them,  the  only  way  in  which  women 
can  effectively  reach  the  schools  is  by  sharing 
in  the  election  for  Mayor. 

Twenty-three  States  other  than  New  York 
have  conferred  school  suffrage  upon  women. 
The  right  is  so  new,  the  mental  habits  of  women 
and  capacity  for  collective  action  have  been  as 
yet  so  little   tested,  that  little   can  be  learned 


Woman   Suffrage,  163 

about  tlie  effect  of  women's  voting  from  the  his- 
tory of  school  suffrage.  Complaints  of  apathy, 
of  special  parsimony  on  the  part  of  women  tax- 
payers, of  lack  of  initiative  in  the  improvement 
of  education,  are  easily  made.  Sometimes  such 
complaints  are  well  founded  and  incidental  to 
a  transition  state  of  things.  Quite  as  often  they 
are  radically  unjust,  and  overlook  tangible  in- 
stances of  valuable  aid  rendered  by  women  to 
the  schools,  to  schooling,  or  to  the  action  of  offi- 
cials. 

Because  women  should  be,  from  their  natural 
relations  and  from  the  extent  to  which  the  busi- 
ness of  teaching  has  fallen  into  their  hands, 
peculiarly  interested  in  school  government  and 
administration,  it  does  not  follow  that  under 
hitherto  existing  conditions  they  have  had  op- 
portunities to  receive  the  requisite  training  even 
for  theoretic  thought.  When  it  comes  to  practi- 
cal action  they  are  blocked  at  every  step  by  the 
circumstances  of  their  political  restrictions.  How 
can  women  attempt  to  remedy  the  often  dis- 
graceful material  conditions  of  New  York 
schools,  *  when  they  have  nothing  to  do  with 
taxation  (except  to  pay  their  own  taxes),  and 

*  The  Evening  Post,  April  2,  1894,  article  headed  "Condition  of 
the  Schools  ;  Shocking  Effects  of  what  the  Mayor  Calls  Economy." 


164  ^^ Common  Sense''  applied  to 

not  the  slightest  influence  with  the  Boards  of 
Estimate  and  Apportionment?  How  may 
women  increase  the  efficiency  of  teachers,  dis- 
pirited by  unequal  salaries  and  cowed  by  ma- 
chine rule,  when  they  confront  the  immovable 
determination  in  all  public  administrations  to  ac- 
cord for  the  same  grade  of  work  higher  salaries 
to  voters  than  to  non- voters  ? 

How  can  women  serve,  even  through  the 
courtesy  of  appointment,  on  New  York  School 
Boards,  when,  having  gained  a  footing,  they  are 
promptly  swept  away  again  by  the  decision  of 
a  new  Mayor,  who  has  his  own  views  on  the 
"  place  for  women  "  ?  What  is  wisdom  in  con- 
servative London  may,  without  appeal,  be  pro- 
nounced nonsense  in  New  York. 

The  real  precedent  for  the  enfranchisement  of 
New  York  women  is  hardly  ever  recognized  to 
be  such — we  mean  the  extensions  of  the  fran- 
chise effected  in  England  by  the  Reform  Bills 
of  1832,  1867,  and  1884. 

A  certain  class  of  people  enslaved  to  appear- 

"  The  moral  law  rules  the  world  :  but  at  short  range  the 
senses  are  despotic." 

ances,  always  cowering  before  the  huge  wave  of 
advancing  democracy,  like  children  before  the 


Woman   Suffrage,  165 

surf  on  the  seashore, — are  apt  to  say :  "  Democ- 
racy, once  let  loose,  proceeds  inevitably  from 
bad  to  worse  to  a  final  culmination  (?)  of  imbe- 
cile unfitness.  All  weak,  ignorant,  and  incom- 
petent men  have  already  been  added  to  the 
electorate,  at  least  in  France,  Germany,  and 
America.  It  is  proposed  now  to  take  the  lowest 
step  of  all  and  admit  women." 

Here  is  another  central  grappling  knot  of  the 
discussion :  We  deny,  utterly  and  in  toto,  that 
the  extension  of  suffrage  to  women  implies  a 
general  step  downwards  in  competency.  In  the 
language  of  the  English  debates  of  1867,  what 
is  demanded  is  Twt  a  further  vertical  extension, 
but  simply  a  lateral  extension  along  the  lines  of 
all  existing  classes.  So  long  as  it  was  assumed 
in  theory,  and  often  true  in  fact,  that  every 
woman  was  necessarily  the  inferior  of  every 
man  in  her  family — father,  brother,  husband, 
son — in  intelligence,  education,  judgment, 
strength  of  character,  woman  suffrage  might 
seem  indeed  to  constitute  a  vertical  extension 
downwards,  a  distinct  lowering  of  the  franchise 
in  dignity  and  efficiency.  Exclusion  from  the 
franchise  has  been  marvellously  effective  in 
perpetuating  the  reasons  which  might  seem  to 
justify  such  exclusion.     But  this  is  not  more 


1 66  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

true  of  women  than  of  every  class  permanently- 
excluded  from  share  in  the  Sovereignty.  Com- 
pare the  desperately  degraded  populace  of 
England  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  with  the  English  freemen  of  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries,  or  even  with  the  upper 
class  of  "  landless  "  men,  who  came  so  near  the 
franchise  that  the  acquisition  of  a  few  acres 
sufficed  to  acquire  the  suffrage. 

"  I  have  shown  that  from  the  earliest  recorded  annals, 
through  nearly  three  centuries,  the  condition  of  the 
English  laborer  was  that  of  plenty  and  hope, — that  from 
perfectly  intelligible  causes  it  sunk  within  a  century  to 
so  low  a  level  as  to  make  the  workmen  practically  help- 
less. .  .  .  The  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  still  far  below  the  level  of  the  fifteenth."  * 

The  class  relations  of  women  have  compen- 
sated to  a  certain  extent  the  disabilities  of  their 
sex  condition. 

This  is  why  Dr.  Curtis  writes  eloquently  : 

"  It  must  be  proved  that,  in  spite  of  generous  law- 
making for  women,  there  still  lurks  in  the  heart  of  the 
average  citizen  an  innate  savage  longing  to  harass  and 
oppress  the  mother  that  gave  him  being,  the  wife  whom 
he  invites  to  share  his  home,  and  the  daughter  whose 
sweet  devotion  is  the  very  sunshine  of  his  life  !  " 

*  Thorold  Rogers,  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages,  1884,  p.  522. 


Woman  Suffrage,  167 

Even  in  a  time  most  remote  from  our  own 
epoch  of  softened  manners,  it  may  be  presumed 
that  the  legislation  and  customs  which  did  op- 
press and  harass  women,  did  not  originate  in 
any  "  innate  savage  longing  "  on  the  part  of  men 
to  do  so.  It  was  shaped  by  no  harsher  senti- 
ment than  contempt ;  and  remained  for  so  many 
years  unmodified,  for  no  more  definite  reasons 
than  forgetf ulness  of  the  wrongs  of  an  unobtru- 
sive people,  or  illusions,  which  made  many  of 
these  wrongs  seem  rights. 


So  great  a  favorite  of  the  English  law  is  the  female 


sex  ! 


"  Admitting,"  observes  Mr.  Pellew,  "  that  for 
some  reason  or  other  the  Legislature  has  per- 
formed many  ^good  works  for  women,'  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  present  system  of  indirect 
representation  has  been  a  success.  Can  it  be 
said  that  it  was  not  until  1874  (in  Massachu- 
setts), that  it  was  right  to  prohibit  a  husband 
who  had  deserted  his  wife  from  imposing  any 
restraint  on  her  personal  liberty  ? " 

Admitting  freely,  that  in  every  social  class 
women  have  shared  abundantly  in  the  material 
advantages  and  the  social  position  which  have 
been  won  by  the  struggles  of  their  "  mates,"  it 


1 68  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

remains  true  that  until  the  present  century 
women  have  been  left  in  a  condition  of  mental 
degradation,  which,  for  mental  purposes,  may- 
be very  accurately  compared  with  the  material 
degradation  of  the  disfranchised  English 
laborer.  We  do  not  speak  of  exceptions,  but 
of  the  vast  mass  of  women  as  compared  with 
the  vast  mass  of  men  of  their  own  class  and 
families. 

"  Women  may  be  inferior  beings,"  writes  Sydney  Smith, 
"but  there  really  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  a  woman  of 
forty  should  always  be  as  ignorant  as  a  boy  of  twelve." 

"  Of  women  no  less  than  of  men  it  is  true  that  politi- 
cal dependence  fosters  ignorance  and  cowardice,  and 
that  independence  of  thought  and  inquiry  is  fostered  by 
political  independence.  It  is  a  legitimate  deduction  from 
the  history  of  slaves,  of  serfs,  and  of  all  dependent  peo- 
ple, to  conclude  that  it  is  the  absence  of  the  suffrage  that 
keeps  so  many  women,  to  such  a  degree,  '  ill-educated, 
bullied,  cowardly,  bigoted,  and  empty-headed.'  "  * 

The  claim  for  Woman  Suffrage  simply  empha- 
sizes, endorses,  and  ratifies  the  movement  of  ex- 
tension of  actual  value,  along  lateral  class  lines, 
which  industrial,  legal,  and  educational  move- 
ments have  already  thoroughly  begun.  It  de- 
nies that  women  to-day  constitute  a  universally 
"  weak  and  dependent  class " ;  just  as  it  was 

*  George  Pellew,  loc.  cit.,  p.  36. 


Woman   Suffrage,  169 

denied  in  1867  that  English  artisans,  though 
living  in  houses  of  only  seven  pounds'  rental 
value,  must  necessarily  be  drunkards  and  ready 
to  sell  their  votes. 

"  Every  man  will  admit  that  since  the  Reform  Bill  (of 
1832)  great  progress  in  knowledge  and  capacity  has  been 
make  by  the  working-classes.  .  .  .  Can  you  say  that 
there  are  not  persons  below  the  class  of  ten-pounds 
thoroughly  fitted  for  the  suffrage,  perfectly  capable  of 
judgment?"* 

Nothing  could  more  vividly  illustrate  the 
power  of  the  idea,  at  once  so  stubborn  and  so 
primitive,  which  supposes  that  personalities 
may  be  adequately  measured  and  defined  by 
classes,  than  the  debates  on  the  English  Re- 
form Bills.  It  was  actually  necessary  to  point 
out  that  any  of  the  tests  proposed — the  forty- 
shilling  freehold  of  Henry  VI.,  or  the  payment 
of  poor-rates,  or  the  payment  of  a  given  rental, 
or  even  the  possession  of  a  bank  book — were  all 
purely  artificial  tests,  and  involved  no  principle 
whatever ;  "  that  sometimes  *  drunkards,  spend- 
thrifts, sluggards,  vagrants,  and  profligates' 
lived  in  very  good  houses,  and  paid  their  rents 
and  rates  regularly."  f 

*  Cox,  loc.  cit.  f  Cox,  loc.  cit.^  p.  122. 


170  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

"  Lord  Robert  Montagu  said  that  the  principle  under 
which  our  liberties  have  taken  root  and  grown  up,  is  the 
theory  that  representation  ought  to  depend  on  the  posses- 
sion of  property  ;  that  land  ought  to  be  represented  ; 
because  no  stability  nor  permanence  can  be  expected 
unless  the  electors  have  something  at  stake."  * 

This  stubborn  adhesion  to  lines  of  class,  no 
matter  how  irrelevant  to  the  purpose  the  basis 
of  classification,  is  evidently  a  survival  of  the 
still  more  antique  idea  of  caste.  Equal  rights 
were  initiated  at  Kome,  when  privilege  of  prop- 
erty superseded  privilege  of  birth;  since  the 
opportunity  to  acquire  property  was  open,  but 
the  privilege  of  birth  irreversibly  closed.  In 
its  turn  political  privilege  of  property  has  been 
found  oppressive,  and  its  claims  gradually  re- 
laxed. 

"  As  men^  those  below  the  ten-pound  line  could  have 
nothing  to  say  ;  only  as  having  money  ;  and  the  acquisition 
of  money  and  other  value,  was  constantly  being  retarded 
by  the  fact  that  they  were  considered  of  less  value  than 
other  men." 

This  for  men.  But  for  women  is  still  reiterated 
and  re-enforced  the  oldest,  the  most  irreversible 
privilege  of  birth  imaginable — the  privileges  of 
those  born  to  one  sex — over  those  who  have  been 
born  to  another. 

*  Cox,  loc.  cit. 


Woman   Suffrage,  171 

Riglits  of  Roman  patricians,  of  Athenian 
eupatridse,  of  Saxon  thanes,  of  Norman  nobles, 
of  English  whigs,  even  of  ten-pound  house- 
holders, have  all  been  abrogated,  or  at  least 
their  supremacy  abated.  Only  the  one  primi- 
tive right,  the  right  of  a  circumstance  of  birth, 
which  has  been  repudiated  in  such  innumerable 
grants  of  other  rights — this  alone  is  maintained, 
because  the  persons  wronged  by  it  are  unable 
to  assert  their  own  claims  by  force  of  arms,  but 
must  appeal  to  the  reason  and  equity  of  those 
in  power ! 

But  to  what  else  did  the  disfranchised  classes 
of  England  appeal,  in  1832,  in  1867,  and  in  1884  ? 
Did  they  resort  to  arms  ?  Did  they  excite — did 
they  even  threaten  revolution  ?  The  peaceful 
triumph  of  their  cause  is  an  unerring  harbin- 
ger of  the  success  of  the  woman's  similar 
claim.  Their  case  is  not  indeed  exactly  identi- 
cal ;  but  it  is  so  closely  analogous,  that  it  is  both 
fair  and  safe  to  reason  from  one  to  the  other. 

"  A  section  of  the  press  deprecated  the  ruinous  effects 
of  democracy  in  language  which,  read  again  after  the 
Reform  Bill  of  1867,  seems  preposterous."  * 

"The  great  legislative  and  administrative  period — per- 
haps the  greatest  in  our  annals — will  be  the  history  of 

*  Cox,  loc.  cit. 


172  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

emancipation,  political,  social,  moral,  and  intellectual.  I 
consider  my  career  as  beginning  with  the  Reform  Act  of 
1832."* 

The  special  contrast  which  the  general  en- 
franchisement of  women  in  New  York  would 
offer  to  the  English  Eeform  Bills  lies  in  the 
absolute  numbers  which  would  be  involved. 
In  England,  Lord  EusselFs  Bill  of  1860  pro- 
posed the  addition  of  only  248,000  persons  to 
the  electorate.  In  1865  it  was  found  that,  in 
England  and  Wales,  488,920  persons  were  then 
entitled  to  vote.  Of  these,  128,603,  or  26  per 
cent.,  maintained  themselves  by  daily  manual 
labor — were  mechanics  and  artisans.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone estimated  that  at  that  date  the  aggregate 
income  of  the  working  classes  constituted  -f-^  of 
the  total  income  of  the  country,  and  "  yet  they 
were  put  off  with  \  of  the  electoral  power." 
The  various  detailed  reforms  proposed  would 
add  400,000  persons  to  the  electorate. 

This  number  was  almost  equal  to  that  of  the 
whole  number  of  voters  already  existing.  In 
other  words,  the  proposed  bill  of  1865  (which 
failed  to  become  a  law)  would  have  almost 
"doubled  the  vote."     By  the  bills  of  1867  and 

*  Gladstone,  letter  to  Midlothian  Liberals,  cited  in  Evening  Post^ 
March  27,  1894. 


Woman  Suffrage,  173 

1884  the  number  of  voters  previous  to  1865 
has  been  quadrupled.  (Cox). 

In  the  State  of  New  York,  with  a  voting 
population  of  1,500,000,  the  addition  of  1,500,- 
000  would  also  double  the  vote.  But  it  would 
do  no  more.  And  as,  whatever  our  other  diffi- 
culties have  been,  New  York  has  experienced 
no  more  difficulty  in  handling  and  counting 
1,500,000  votes  than  England  had  in  casting 
500,000,  it  may  be  presumed  that  with  us 
3,000,000  votes  could  be  managed  as  easily  as 
the  3,000,000  of  the  United  Kingdom.*  Further, 
the  addition  of  women's  votes  would  increase 
the  proportion  of  the  native,  to  that  of  the 
foreign,  vote.  In  the  State  the  total  native-born 
population  is  4,426,803,  the  foreign  born  1,769,- 
649,  or  three  times  as  many  natives  as  aliens. 
There  are  56,000  more  native-born  white  females 
than  native-born  white  males.  They  outnum- 
ber the  foreign-born  females  by  1,430,345 
throughout  the  State,  and  by  109,687  through- 
out the  city.* 

It  has  been  constantly  asserted  during  this 
year's  suffrage  campaign  that  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  women  would  only  "  double  the  exist- 

*  Taylor,  loc.  cit.,  p.  6i6. 
f  Adele  Fielde,  loc.  cit. 


1 74  **  Common   Sense  "  applied  to 

ing  vote ;  and  what  was  needed  was  to  improve 
tlie  quality,  not  increase  the  quantity,  of  the 
vote.""^  The  Reform  Bills  of  conservative 
England  did  exactly  that — they  "  doubled  the 
vote,"  and  in  the  teeth  of  a  frantic  opposition 
which  "  protested  "  against  an  "  increase  in  the 
quantity  without  security  for  improvement  in 
the  quality  of  the  vote." 

One  of  the  great  bugbears  in  England  was 
the  dread  of  a  "monotonous  constituency,  a 
constituency  whose  predominant  opinions  would 
be  identical,  who  would  return  to  Parliament 
members  holding  the  same  ideas,  the  same 
opinions,  the  same  sentiments."  f 

The  same  objection  has  been  urged  against 
the  woman's  vote,  and  even  by  members  of  the 
Massachusetts  Senate.  Because  among  public 
questions,  the  liquor  question  touches  upon  the 
interests  of  women,  even  while  unenfranchised, 
it  is  assumed  that  they  would  think  of  nothing 
else,  even  after  their  admission  to  the  general 
range  of  political  discussion  would  have  given 
them  many  other  subjects  for  reflection. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  various  differences 
which  exist  between  the  character  or  mental 

*  Protest  of  Brooklyn  anti-suffragists, 
f  Disraeli,  Debates,  1865,  cited  by  Cox. 


Woman  Suffrage,  175 

habit  of  women  and  of  men,  are  alleged  as 
liable  to  introduce  dangerous  confusion  in  a 
"  mixed  "  electorate. 

Such  confusion  has  been  foreboded  by  Gold- 
win  Smith  and  others  from  "  mixed  colleges  "  ; 
but  the  foreboding  has  remained  as  unsub- 
stantial as  an  unpleasant  morning  dream. 
Certainly  no  American  at  this  fin  du  siecle  can 
venture  to  assert  "  homogeneity  "  is  an  essential 
condition  of  prosperous  political  life.  Should 
he  do  so,  he  must  in  the  same  breath  condemn 
his  country,  with  brief  delay,  to  overwhelming 
political  disaster.  Such  a  commingling  of  na- 
tionalities, races,  languages,  religions,  traditions, 
habits,  ideas,  sentiments,  and  opinions,  was 
never  before  known  in  any  State.  Under  the 
Roman  Empire  these  co-existed  with  each 
other,  but  only  to  a  minimum  extent  co- 
operated to  influence  the  Sovereignty  of  the 
State.  Here  they  do  both.  This  situation 
could  only  exist  in  a  State  both  mighty,  and 
entirely  free. 

The  assertion  that  in  such  a  heterogeneously 
composed  community  the  addition  of  women 
voters  would  add  a  "disturbing  element,"  is 
something  like  saying  that  a  few  thousand 
india-rubber  balls    dropped    upon   the   moon 


176  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

would  reverse  the  present  relations  of  gravita- 
tion between  that  satellite  and  the  earth. 

However,  to  the  extent  to  which  it  may  be 
desirable  to  diminish  the  influence  of  the 
foreign  conglomerate  of  nationalities  and  reli- 
gions, the  woman's  vote  is  to  be  desired,  since, 
as  shown  above,  it  would,  at  this  time,  increase 
the  preponderance  of  the  native  vote ;  even,  if 
that  also  be  thought  imjDortant,  of  the  Protes- 
tant vote. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  position  of  women  is, 
and  it  is  unique  for  any  new  class  of  voters, 
that  they  are  not  homogeneous  with  each  other, 
but  are  so  with  the  men  among  whom  they  live. 
Although  some  peculiarities  of  sex  and  training 
would  emphasize  in  them  certain  tendencies  of 
thought  and  action  in  preference  to  others,  they 
would  bring  no  distinctive  ideas  into  the  arena, 
but  only  those  which  were  already  common 
property  of  one  or  the  other  masculine  group. 
The  admission  therefore  would  combine  the 
advantages  of  both  a  homogeneous  and  a  hetero- 
geneous franchise,  and  at  the  same  time  would 
be  free  from  the  disadvantasres  of  either. 

The  fourth  question  we  have  suggested  may 
be  presumed  to  especially  refer  to  the  ignorance 
of  women,  and  to  the  lack  of  independence 
usually  attributed  to  their  sex. 


Woman  Suffrage,  177 

The  "anti-suffragists"  of  the  drawing-rooms 
of  Brooklyn  and  Albany  have  been  ready  to 
believe  that  when  men  objected  to  the  female 
vote  because  it  would  increase  the  **  ignorant 
vote,"  they  only  meant  the  ignorance  of  the 
maid  servants  in  their  kitchens,  or  of  the  fe- 
male immigrants  at  Castle  Garden.  We  women 
are  under  no  such  illusion.  We  are  fully  aware 
that  this  objection  is  a  widely  diffused  convic- 
tion, sometimes  expressed  learnedly,  sometimes 
elegantly,  sometimes  with  extreme  politeness 
and  consideration,  but  always  substantially 
identical  with  the  offhand  opinion  of  the  aver- 
age voter,  who  with  feet  on  the  mantelpiece, 
and  hat  well  set  on  the  back  of  his  head,  jerks 
his  five-cent  cigar  out  of  his  mouth  long  enough 
to  ejaculate,  "  What  do  women  know  about 
politics,  anyhow  ? "  and  then  resumes  his  study 
of  the  sporting  columns  of  the  newspaper. 

There  is  the  ignorance  of  the  educated  woman 
and  the  ignorance  of  the  ignorant  woman,  and 
they  deserve  a  little  different  consideration. 

The  ignorance  of  otherwise  educated  women 
in  regard  to  current  politics  certainly  proves 
nothing  against  their  intelligence.  In  the 
absence  of  any  practical  motive  for  acquiring 
information, 'such  women  could  only  study  cur- 
rent politics  in  the  same  way  as  they  would 


178  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

study  the  structure  of  early  Anglo-Saxon 
societies,  or  the  village  communities  of  the 
ancient  Aryans;  and  some  women  have  done 
this  very  thing.  But  they  were  necessarily 
those  possessed  of  that  surplus  of  intellectual 
activity,  which  remains  to  a  few  people,  and 
unfortunately  only  a  few,  after  all  practical 
functions  of  intelligence  had  been  fulfilled. 
What  women  would  do  with  the  practical 
duties  of  political  life,  did  these  once  devolve 
upon  them,  must  be  judged  by  the  intelligence 
and  efficiency  with  which  they  discharge  the 
duties  they  already  assume.  That  those  duties 
are  already  multifarious  and  responsible  no  one 
to-day  would  deny ;  and  that  women  do  acquit 
themselves  of  these  responsibilities  with  intel- 
ligence and  fidelity,  no  one  at  present  ventures 
to  dispute.  Nothing  can  be  much  more  fantas- 
tic than  the  idea  that  the  new  political  duty 
would  add  itself  to  those  already  assumed  as  a 
"  burden."  Who  ever  can  seriously  make  such 
an  assertion  must  speak  from  the  bewilderment 
of  some  troubled  dream;  a  vision  of  Vathek, 
where  crowds  of  female  shapes  pace  to  and  fro 
in  halls  of  Eblis,  with  hands  on  their  palpi- 
tating hearts,  engaged  at  once  in  scrubbing, 
cooking,  sewing,  teaching,  talking,  nursing  the 


Woman  Suffrage,  179 

measles,  and  pouring  afternoon  teas,  chattering 
at  tlie  opera,  shopping  at  Macy's,  writing  mid- 
night copy  for  New  York  newspapers,  studying 
the  McKinley  bill,  Tlie  Wealth  of  Nations,  and 
Mr.  Atkinson's  economic  charts,  following  the 
investigations  of  the  Lexow  Committee  and  the 
inquiry  into  the  sugar  schedule,  and  conscien- 
tiously making  up  their  minds  in  advance  how 
they  are  going  to  vote  for  the  next  Presidential 
candidate,  who  has  not  yet  been  nominated  ! 

The  reasons  that  the  alarm  engendered  by 
this  vision  is  irrational,  is  that  the  vision  itself  is 
absurd,  as  it  proves  itself  to  be  the  moment  its 
details  are  translated  into  masculine  conditions. 
When  people  are  doing  one  thing  they  are  not 
doing  another ;  when  they  engage  in  matters  of 
larger  concern  they  discover  some  way  of  con- 
densing and  handling  more  effectively  affairs  of 
lesser  scope ;  where  they  require  practical  in- 
formation for  practical  purposes,  they  divert,  if 
necessary,  some  energies  previously  hitherto  en- 
gaged in  theoretical  pursuits,  and  constituting  a 
reserve  force.  Specifically,  when  women,  newly 
enfranchised,  should  require  either  knowledge 
or  advice  in  regard  to  voting,  in  addition  to 
what  they  would  require  for  themselves,  they 
could,  and  would,  follow  the  injunctions  of  St. 


i8o  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

Paul  to  women  admitted  to  the  new  sj)liere 
and  new  responsibilities  of  the  Christian  church, 
"  ask  their  husbands  at  home." 

After  all,  the  most  important  effect  of  the 
suffrage  is  psychological.  The  permanent  con- 
sciousness of  power  for  effective  action,  the 
knowledge  that  their  own  thoughts  have  an 
equal  chance  with  those  of  any  other  person,  in 
being  carried  out  by  one's  own  will ;  this  is  what 
has  always  rendered  the  men  of  a  free  state 
so  energetic,  so  acutely  intelligent,  so  powerful. 
The  influence  of  environment  is  only  beginning 
to-day  to  be  philosophically  appreciated.  It  is 
just  beginning  to  be  suspected  that  the  widely 
diffused  ignorance  of  women  is  not  a  necessary 
organic  peculiarity,  but  explicable  by  the  fact 
that  until  recently  they  were  forbidden  to  learn 
anything.  Similarly  we  may  inquire  whether 
much  of  the  observed  practical  feebleness  of  wo- 
men, even  in  carrying  out  the  thoughts  they  may 
have  justly  conceived,  is  not  due  to  the  social 
customs  which,  in  such  multiple  directions,  for- 
bid their  will  to  have  any  effect.  The  brain  is 
not  only  the  origin  of  activities,  it  is  a  result  of 
them.  "When  Laura  Bridgman  lost  the  power 
to  see  and  hear,  the  part  of  her  brain  containing 
organs  for  sight  and  hearing  atrophied,  while 


Woman  Suffrage.  i8i 

the  central  convolutions,  controlling  the  faculty 
of  touch,  developed  out  of  all  ordinary  propor- 
tion. Life  lies  beyond  the  organs  of  life,  but 
follows  their  shrinkage  or  expansion. 

The  ignorance  of  the  ignorant  women  differs 
in  no  wise  from  that  of  ignorant  men,  except 
that  it  would  be  plausibly  more  amenable  to 
legitimate  influence. 

We  have  already  suggested  that,  with  the 
overthrow  of  the  boundary  walls  which  now, 
theoretically  and  practically,  tend  to  confine  the 
interests  of  women  to  their  respective  "  nests," 
and  to  isolate  them  from  class  interests  in 
women,  broad  channels  would  be  open  for  the 
overflow  of  the  practical  social  enthusiasm  so 
characteristic  of  women.  In  this  direction  we 
especially  look  for  an  answer  to  the  fifth  ques- 
tion we  have  raised,  concerning  the  special 
public  advantage  which  might  result  from  the 
enfranchisement  of  women.  We  believe  it 
would  cause  the  liberation  of  innumerable 
molecular  forces,  which  would  disseminate  them- 
selves in  all  directions  as  civilizing  agencies, 
acting  upon  small  groups  of  people.  Missionary 
w^ork,  Chinese  Sunday-schools,  blanket  clubs, 
picnic  festivals  to  raise  money  for  the  conversion 
of  the  heathen — the  energies  expended  in  such 


1 82  ''Commo7i  Se7ise''  applied  to 

enterprises  could  be  collected,  raised,  intensified, 
immensely  fructified  for  good,  when  turned  in 
the  direction  of  instructing  masses  of  ignorant 
women  how  to  vote,  so  that  the  men  chosen  as 
policemen  on  their  street,  and  the  aldermen  of 
their  ward,  and  the  police  justices  of  their  j)re- 
cinct,  should  be  competent,  honest,  and  honor- 
able. Incidentally  to  such  electioneering  work, 
what  other  instruction  would  come ;  what  ad- 
vantage from  the  commingling  of  classes  on  the 
true  common  ground  of  the  public  welfare 
where  they  can  mingle ;  what  enlightenment  in 
regard  to  self-interests;  what  improvement  in 
modes  of  living ;  what  general  uplifting  of  life  ! 
That  there  would  be  no  voting  en  masse  at 
the  dictate  of  party  leaders,  no  submission  to 
interested  influence,  no  need,  under  the  most 
stringent  ballot  laws,  of  perpetual  vigilance 
against  corruption  and  fraud,  it  would  be  absurd 
to  deny.  But  these  needs  already  exist;  every 
motive  for  combating  the  evils  peculiar  to 
democratic  societies,  and  which  have  succeeded 
to  the  evils  of  aristocratic  societies,  is  fully 
aroused.  The  lateral  extension  of  the  franchise 
by  the  woman  vote  offers  many  suggestions  of 
new  resources  against  these  old  evils,  and  sug- 
gests no   new  evil   itself.      Numbers   will  be 


Woman  Suffrage.  183 

changed,  and  not  proportions.  He  tliat  is 
righteous  will  be  righteous  still,  and  possibly 
the  converse  will  not  be  quite  true.  As  before, 
in  the  words  of  Frederick  Douglas,  "  we  must 
trust  all  the  knowledge  of  the  community  to 
take  care  of  its  ignorance,  and  all  the  virtue  to 
take  care  of  its  vice." 

Most  interesting  as  a  proof  that  the  enfran- 
chisement of  women  is  simply  an  inevitable 
deduction  from  democratic  principles,  and  irre- 
sistibly suggested  by  the  actual  conditions  of 
our  democratic  republic,  is  the  frequent  recur- 
rence of  argument  against  woman  suffrage, 
which  turns  out  to  be  only  argument  in  thin 
disguise  against  democracy.  From  much  of  the 
random  talk  which  has  flashed  to  and  fro 
'during  this  eventful  spring,  it  might  be  inferred 
that  plans  had  been  submitted  to  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  to  change  the  government  of 
our  State  to  an  aristocracy,  or  even  to  that  most 
odious  system  of  all — an  oligarchy.  It  might 
be  supposed  that  New  York  men  and  women 
had  been  invited  to  express  their  preference  for 
the  continuance  of  the  existing  system  of  social 
polity,  where  every  one  is  represented,  and  the 
most  energetic  come  to  the  front  and  finally  rule ; 
or  rather  for  some  system  disinterred  from  the 


184  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

sepulctres  of  bygone  centuries.  Yet  the  only 
proposition  for  disfrancliisement  which  has  ac- 
tually been  submitted  to  the  Convention  came 
associated  with  the  amendment  to  enfranchise 
women.  In  proposing  this,  Mr.  Deane  of 
Rochester  also  proposed  "  to  disfranchise  voters 
convicted  of  bribery." 

Measures  for  disfranchisement  are  by  no 
means  unprecedented  in  Anglo-Saxon  history. 
"  The  first  recorded  was  passed  in  the  eighth 
year  of  Henry  VI.,  and  limited  the  suffrage  not 
only  to  freeholders,  but  to  such  of  them  as 
^  have  free  lands  or  tenements  to  the  value  of 
forty  shillings,  by  the  year  at  least,  above  all 
charges.'  This  was  equivalent  to  a  modern  real 
property  qualification  of  from  thirty  to  forty 
pounds'  annual  value.  It  was  never  enlarged 
from  the  time  of  its  imposition  until  the  enact- 
ment of  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832.  The 
same  reactionary  spirit  which,  before  the 
close  of  the  middle  ages,  thus  brought  about 
the  disfranchisement  of  the  landless  freemen 
and  the  lesser  freeholders  within  the  shires,  also 
impressed  itself  upon  the  municipal  electoral 
system,  producing  a  still  more  sweeping  restric- 
tion of  the  franchise  in  the  cities  and  towns.  A 
persistent  process  of  encroachment  (on  popular 


Woman  Suffrage,  185 

liberties)  was  inaugurated  by  the  Tudors  and 
pursued  by  the  Stuarts  ;  and,  under  its  influence, 
the  English  representative  system  ceased  to  be 
representative.  ...  Of  six  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  members  of  the  Lower  House  re- 
turned in  1816,  four  hundred  and  eighty-seven 
were  the  nominees  of  the  government,  and  two 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  private  patrons, — one 
hundred  and  forty-four  of  the  last-named  being 
members  of  the  House  of  Lords."  * 

Even  the  great  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  which 
transferred  the  control  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons from  the  landed  aristocracy  to  the  Eng- 
lish middle  classes,  involved  measures  of  dis- 
franchisement co-relative  with  those  which  en- 
franchised newly  developed  interests.  Fifty-six 
rotten  boroughs  of  less  than  two  thousand  in- 
habitants were  entirely  disfranchised;  thirty- 
two  members  were  taken  away  from  thirty-two 
boroughs  having  less  than  four  thousand  in- 
habitants. 

In  the  United  States,  two  measures  of  dis- 
franchisement are  already  on  record.  The  first 
was  enacted  in  New  Jersey,  in  1807,  and  ex- 
cluded from  the  suffrage  the  women  property- 
holders  who  had  hitherto  voted. 

*  Hannis  Taylor,  loc.  cit.,  p.  613. 


1 86  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

"  Nothing  can  be  a  greater  mockery  of  this  inalienable 
right  of  suffrage  than  to  suffer  it  to  be  exercised  by  per- 
sons (women)  who  do  not  pretend  to  any  judgment  on 
the  subject."  * 

The  second  measure  was  enacted  most  recent- 
ly, and  is  embodied  in  the  new  State  constitu- 
tion of  Mississippi,  which  now  demands  an 
educational  qualification  for  the  suffrage.  The 
measure  is  intended  to  exclude  from  votino;  as 
many  negroes  as  possible ;  but  in  doing  this  a 
considerable  number  of  white  men  are  also  dis- 
franchised. 

Thus  it  is  absurd  to  declare,  as  has  frequently 
been  done,  that  the  disfranchisement  of  classes 
once  in  possession  of  the  suffrage  is  impossible. 
It  has  been  accomplished,  and  not  infrequently ; 
and,  moreover,  as  an  entirely  peaceable  measure, 
costing  no  bloodshed.  The  question  involved 
is  not  practicability,  but  advisability.  And 
certainly  the  history  of  England,  from  Henry  VI. 
to  William  IV.,  does  not  show  that  "the  en- 
croachments "  on  the  liberties  of  the  people,  in 
the  interests  of  wealth  and  power,  have  proved 
anything  but  disastrous. 

The  desirable  modifications  of  popular  suf- 

*  Errors  and  Omissions  of  the  Constitution  of  New  Jersey,  Em- 
mons, Trenton,  1779.  (Quoted  in  History  Woman  Suffrage,  vol.  i., 
p.  45I-) 


Woman  Suffrage,  187 

frage  are  not  those  which  would  annihilate,  but 
which  would  educate,  train,  and  refine  this, 
and  through  more  delicate  and  flexible  adapta- 
tion of  its  present  crude  machinery  render  the 
suffrage  more  really  representative.  Real 
democracy  is  still  in  its  infancy.  The  educa- 
tion of  the  (popular)  Prince  has  hardly  as  yet 
advanced  beyond  the  stage  where  ministers  roll 
balls  upon  the  floor  for  his  amusement.  The 
Dauphin  has  not  yet  found  his  Fenelon,  nor 
Rasselas  his  sage.  So  little,  however,  does  the 
enfranchisement  of  women  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
necessary  education  and  evolution  of  democracy, 
that  it  is  the  fundamental  contradiction  to 
accepted  ideas  involved  in  the  exclusion  of 
women  from  the  electorate,  which  is  really  one 
of  the  great  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way  of 
reform.  While  half  the  adult,  reasonable,  im- 
portant, influential,  and  interesting  part  of  the 
population  remains  individually  unrepresented, 
the  importance  of  political  representation  wanes 
in  popular  appreciation.  The  crimes  of  usurpa- 
tion of  sovereignty,  of  defeating  the  poj)ular 
will,  of  establishing  the  odious  dominion  of  an 
oligarchy  under  the  rule  of  the  party  boss — all 
cease  to  seem  odious  or  to  deserve  any  strenuous 
resistance,  condemnation,  or  punishment.     In  a 


1 88  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

State  where  education  is  free  and  so  generally 
sought  after  that  compulsion  is  only  occasionally 
and  locally  required,  illiteracy  is  a  factor  almost 
negligeable,  and  of  annually  decreasing  impor- 
tance. To-day,  as  always,  it  is  not  the  mass  of 
the  poor,  but  the  combinations  of  the  rich  that 
menace  the  State;  not  the  labor  organizations, 
but  the  millionaire  trusts  which  corrupt  legisla- 
tures and  administrations;  not  the  workmen, 
for  whose  employment  the  community  appro- 
priates a  million  dollars,  but  the  officials  who 
squander  or  misappropriate  the  appropriation. 
We  may  almost  add — it  is  not  the  uninstructed 
men  who,  on  the  confines  of  the  civilization  of 
the  community,  sell  their  votes,  who  are  chiefly 
dangerous,  but  the  instructed  and  adroitly  intel- 
ligent men  from  the  midst,  who  buy  them ;  and 
the  other  men,  absorbed  in  private  business  or 
political  speculation,  who  wink  at  the  process, 
or  fail  to  devise  measures  for  its  arrest. 

On  the  31st  of  May,  the  woman  suffrage  peti- 
tion from  New  York  was  endorsed  by  leaders 
of  labor  organizations,  representing  100,000 
men.  It  is  easy  to  assert,  from  within  the  stiff- 
necked  ranks  of  our  metropolitan  bourgeoisie, 
that  such  endorsements  forbode  the  utilization, 
through  pressure,  threat,  or  purchase,  of  a  new 


Woman  Suffrage,  1 89 

contingent  of  feeble  and  dependent  voters,  to 
be  massed  according  to  party  calculations,  or  to 
further  schemes  of  hair-brained  socialism.  But 
the  truth  is,  for  those  who  desire  the  truth, — 
that  such  endorsements  mean  the  distinct  per- 
ception of  and  danger  to  the  interests  of  work- 
ing men,  of  the  unequal  position  of  the  great 
masses  in  their  midst  of  working  women.  In 
the  most  obvious  manner,  and  over  and  over 
again,  has  the  readiness  of  women  to  accept 
lesser  pay  for  the  same  work,  undermined  the 
strength  of  the  combinations  formed  to  secure 
a  larger  share  of  profits  to  labor.  It  would  be 
ridiculous  to  pretend  that  political  equality 
would  enable  women  to  earn  as  much  as  men 
wherever  an  actual  inferiority  in  physical  or 
mental  strength  compelled  them  to  earn  less. 
But  in  such  cases  the  competition  of  women 
with  men  would  do  no  harm,  whereas  now  it  is 
often  as  ruinous  to  men  as  their  inability  to 
command  equal  pay  for  equal  work  is  injurious 
to  themselves. 

The  existence  and  definite  articulation  of 
"Labor  Questions," at  which  so  many  sneer, — 
simply  marks  the  final  transformation  of  the 
social  system  of  militarism,  into  that  of  indus- 
trialism.    It  indicates  that  work  is  no  longer 


IQO  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

held  to  be  a  mere  incident  in  the  social  life  of  a 
community,  whose  serious  business  consisted  in 
war,  hunting,  diplomacy,  and  conversation ;  but 
that  in  the  social  estimate  as  well  as  in  fact, 
the  productive  forces  of  the  community  occu- 
pied the  same  relation  to  the  life  of  the  State, 
as  the  nutritive  forces  of  the  bodily  organism  to 
the  individual  life.  That  being  thus  fundamental 
to  all  social  activities,  and  supporting  all  social 
existence,  these  nutritive  forces  of  productive  in- 
dustry deserved  all  social  respect ;  being  indeed 
only  justly  subordinate  to  such  social  organs  as 
correspond  to  the  nerves,  muscles,  and  brain  of 
the  animal  body. 

The  share  of  women  in  political  rights  and 
life — imperfect,  or  deferred,  or  abrogated  during 
the  predominance  of  militarism — has  become 
natural,  has  become  inevitable,  with  the  advent 
of  industrialism,  in  which  they  so  largely  share. 
Useless  therefore  to  assert  the  need  of  delaying 
enfranchisement  to  some  other  epoch  of  whose 
nature  or  occurrence  no  one  has  as  yet  the 
faintest  conception. 

Thus  the  precise  advantages  to  the  community 
to  be  anticipated  from  the  enfranchisement  of 
women,  are  to  be  inferred  by  any  one  capable  of 
reasoning  on  the  subject,  from  the  entire  trend 


Woman  Suffrage.  191 

of  our  argument  which  is  now  drawing  to  a 
close.  It  is  not  women,  but  men,  and  the 
heroic  men  of  many  generations,  who  have 
decided  that  a  claim  for  Rights  must,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  antedate  demonstrations  of 
utility.  If  the  highest  utility  in  a  democratic 
State  be  the  development  to  the  utmost  of  all 
the  capacities  of  all  its  members ;  if  the  State 
suffers  when  energies,  which  might  be  usefully 
applied,  are  repressed,  crippled,  or  allowed  to 
rust ;  if  interests  suffer,  when  entrusted  for  their 
defence  to  any  one  but  those  directly  concerned 
in  them ;  if  public  morals  suffer  when  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  a  given  social  order  are  tra- 
versed by  conventions  inconsistent  with  such 
ideas ;  if  public  ideals  suffer  when  sovereign 
power,  which  should  plainly  devolve  upon  the 
highest  attributes,  is  accorded  to  the  lowest ; — if 
all  this  be  true,  it  is  superfluous  to  try  to  show 
further  that  the  enfranchisement  of  women 
would  redound  to  the  welfare  of  the  Empire 
State.  It  is  in  this  State,  and  almost  in  this 
alone,  where  may  be  discerned  such  steady  line 
of  historic  sequence  in  the  social  advancement 
of  women,  as  leads  directly  towards  their  po- 
litical emancipation.  Let  the  augury  be  fulfilled, 
and  the  line  of  march  carried  to  its  logical 
conclusion  ! 


192  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

The  remarkable  phenomenon  recently  exhibi- 
ted of  the  active  opposition  of  women  to  such 
enfranchisement  is,  though  interesting  as  a  psy- 
chological and  social  phenomenon,  of  very  little 
other  significance.  The  extreme  ignorance  of 
the  subject  shown  in  the  written  protests  ;  the 
naive  unconsciousness  of  the  real  reasons  in- 
fluencing much  of  the  masculine  protest,  are 
natural  to  the  inexperience  of  people  who 
begin  to  talk  volubly  about  what  they  them- 
selves profess  to  have  hardly  ever  thought. 
The  gist  of  the  opposition  lies  chiefly  in  the 
dread  of  innovation,  which  is  a  natural  instinct 
with  women, — an  instinct  intensified,  moreover, 
by  innumerable  forces  of  tradition,  training, 
and  environment.  Opposition  to  what  is  new, 
necessarily  subsides  so  soon  as  the  new  has 
become  the  customary.  The  idea  that  the 
women  who  have  shown  so  much  public 
activity  in  voting  against  the  suffrage  petition, 
would  refuse  to  go  to  the  polls  to  defeat  any 
other  measure  they  might  be  opposed  to,  is 
evidently  absurd.  "  The  immense  difficulty  in 
democracies,"  it  has  been  said,  "  lies  in  calling 
out  the  vote."     Let  the  women  try  their  hand  ! 

"At  present  writing,  the  signatures  to  the  suffrage 
petition  number  300,000  ;  the  one  anti-suffrage  petition 
is  signed  by  only  6000  persons." 


Woman  Suffrage,  193 

The  same  publicists  who  have  recently  dep- 
recated the  popular  desire  to  share  in  the 
sovereignty,  and  attributed  it  to  a  mania  for 
"too  much  government,"  have,  on  other  occa- 
sions, laid  great  stress  on  the  difficulty  of 
managing  the  masses  of  a  huge  electorate,  whose 
members  are  so  apt  to  be  apathetic  at  elections. 
The  apathy  may  be  taken  as  a  measure,  among 
other  things,  of  the  influence  of  women,  neces- 
sarily apathetic  in  regard  to  affairs  from  which 
they  are  excluded,  and  in  a  position  to  infect 
their  "  mates  "  with  their  own  indifference.  Our 
naturalization  laws  are  based  on  the  postulate, 
that  the  presence  in  the  State  of  a  vast  mass  of 
aliens,  indifferent  to  public  affairs,  and  concen- 
trated on  their  private  interests,  is  a  standing 
menace  to  the  public  welfare.  Why  does  not 
the  postulate  apply  to  women,  whose  influence 
is  so  much  more  extensive,  subtle,  and  direct  ? 

Arguments  to  postpone  the  enfranchisement 
of  women  are  advanced  by  many  who  admit 
the  theoretical  justice  and  expediency  of  the 
measure.  It  is  as  difficult  to  detect  any  solid 
grounds  for  such  arguments  as  to  estimate  the 
density  of  a  morning  mist. 

"  Among  many  arguments  I  have  heard,  the  following 
seems  the  most  general,  viz.  :  that  had  this  rupture 
happened  forty  or  fifty  years  hence,  instead  of  now,  the 


194  ''Common  Sense''  applied  to 

continent  would  have  been  more  able  to  have  shaken  off 
the  dependence.  To  which  I  reply,  that  our  military 
ability  at  this  time  arises  from  the  experience  gained  in 
the  last  war,  and  which  in  forty  or  fifty  years'  time  would 
be  totally  extinct."  * 

Although  the  general  evolution  of  women's 
condition  during  the  last  half  century,  and 
which  puts  them  to-day  in  a  position  to  claim 
political  rights,  cannot  be  compared  in  its  effect 
with  that  of  the  French  and  Indian  War ;  yet, 
in  a  certain  sense,  such  comparison  may  be 
made  with  the  share  sustained  by  women  in 
the  anti-slavery  struggle  and  the  Civil  War. 
Ground  was  gained  then  which  since  has 
been  rather  lost  than  further  gained.  We 
are  constantly  being  told  of  the  temporary 
"  wave  of  the  woman  movement  "  which  swept 
over  the  country  coincidently  with  abolition- 
ism and  teetotalism,  and  the  Graham-bread  gos- 
pel, and  a  host  of  other  "  isms."  Because  the 
Bloomer  dress  did  not  prevail  (the  gods  were 
good  !),  it  is  readily  assumed  that  the  movement 
for  human  rights  ended  with  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment. 

We  are  at  present  at  the  slack  of  the  tide,  no 
longer  at  the  flood.  Perhaps,  however,  already 
the  ebb  has  begun  to  change  ! 

*  Comi7ion  Sense ^  p.  115. 


Woman  Suffrage,  195 

Let  us  at  all  events  steadfastly  resist  the 
specious  advice  tendered  from  other  quarters,  to 
postpone  our  claim  and  wait  till  every  one  else 
has  been  served ;  wait,  like  poor  Miss  Flite,  for 
the  judgment  which  is  likely  only  to  come  with 
the  day  of  judgment.  To  wait  till  municipal 
politics  are  purified,  minority  representation 
secured,  democracy  grown  from  its  crude  begin- 
nings; till  illiteracy  has  ceased  to  exist;  till 
venal  votes  have  ceased  to  be  bought  q,nd  sold ; 
till  Catholics  have  ceased  to  struggle  for  the 
schools ;  till  Protestants  have  ceased  to  imitate 
the  bigotry  of  sixteenth  century  Catholics ;  till 
political  rings  have  been  dissolved;  till  the 
power  of  boss  rule  has  been  broken  ;  till  the 
liquor  question  has  been  eliminated  from  poli- 
tics ;  till  the  Kepublican  party  has  been  raised 
to  the  level  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  the 
Democratic  party  left  at  no  lower  eminence 
than  Thomas  Jefferson ! 

Is  not  this  to  say  that  political  rights  may  be 
demanded  only  when  political  life  shall  have 
ceased  to  exist  ? 

And  now,  lest  the  preceding  pages  may  seem 
(as  we  hope,)  to  savor  somewhat  strongly  of  the 
passionate  partisan  flavor  of  their  famous  proto- 
type, let  us  calm  them  down  and  close  them  in 


196  '^Common  Sense''  applied  to 

with  the  calm,  pallid,  bloodless,  and  therefore 
(we  again  hope,)  utterly  unobjectionable  con- 
clusions of  a  famous  modern  philosopher. 

"  Thus  it  has  been  shown  that  the  rights  of 
women  must  stand  or  fall  with  those  of  men, 
derived  as  they  are  from  the  same  authority, 
involved  in  the  same  axiom,  demonstrated  by 
the  same  argument.  That  the  law  of  equal 
freedom  applies  alike  to  both  sexes  has  been 
further  »proved  by  the  fact  that  any  other  hy- 
pothesis involves  us  in  inextricable  difficulties. 
The  idea  that  the  rights  of  women  are  not 
equal  to  those  of  men  has  been  abandoned  as 
akin  to  the  Eastern  dogma  that  women  have  no 
souls.  The  position  at  present  held  by  the 
weaker  sex  is  of  necessity  a  wrong  one,  seeing 
that  the  same  selfishness  which  vitiates  our  po- 
litical institutions  must  inevitably  vitiate  our 
domestic  ones  also.  Proof  has  been  given  that 
the  attitudes  of  mastery  on  the  one  side,  and 
submission  on  the  other,  are  essentially  at 
variance  with  that  refined  sentiment  which 
should  subsist  between  husband  and  wife.  The 
argument  that  married  life  would  be  imprac- 
ticable under  any  other  arrangement  has  been 
met  by  pointing  out  how  the  relationship  of 
equality  must  become  possible  as  fast  as  its 


Woman  Suffrage,  197 

justness  is  recognized.  And  lastly,  it  has  been 
shown  that  the  objections  commonly  raised 
against  giving  political  power  to  women  are 
founded  on  notions  and  prejudices  that  will  not 
bear  examination."  * 

"  See  !  we  might  say,  there  is  a  general  consciousness, 
a  permanent  Common  Sense,  independent  indeed  of 
each  one  of  us,  but  with  which  we  are,  each  one  of  us, 
in  communication."  \ 

*  Herbert  Spencer,  Social  Statics,  1871,  p.  191.  "The  Rights  of 
Women." 

t  Walter  Pater,  Plato  and  Platonism,  p.  135. 


APPENDIX. 

ADDRESS    ON    BEHALF  OF     THE    WOMEN  OF    THE  CITY    OF 
NEW    YORK 

BEFORE  THE 

COMMITTEE    ON    SUFFRAGE    OF    THE    STATE    CONSTITU- 
TIONAL CONVENTION, 

May  31,  1894. 

•  Gentlemen  :  It  is  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  momen- 
tous importance  of  our  errand  that  we  present  ourselves 
before  you  on  this  occasion.  Never  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  a  greater  question  been  submitted  to  a  delib- 
erative body  for  discussion  than  that  which  we  now  pray 
you  to  consider.  Other  conventions,  in  this  and  other 
lands,  have  framed  constitutions  for  a  State,  have  laid 
down  laws  for  a  people,  have  enfranchised  social  classes, 
have  even  called  entire  nations  into  being.  But  we 
ask  you  to  consider  that  part  of  the  State  about  which 
constitutions  have  been  silent  ;  to  enfranchise  a  class  so 
immense  that  it  constitutes  the  full  half  of  all  social 
classes  ;  to  call  into  political  existence  a  vital  half  of 
the  nation,  which  hitherto,  though  personally,  socially, 
and  legally  recognized,  has  been,  politically,  non-exist- 
ent.    Although  we  are  only  entitled  to  speak,  and  you 

199 


200  Appendix, 

authorized  to  reply  for  a  single  State,  it  is  certain  that 
the  enfranchisement  of  women  in  the  State  of  New  York 
would  necessarily  be  followed,  after  no  great  lapse  of 
time,  by  similar  measures  in  all  the  other  States  of  the 
Union.  And  further,  as  manhood  suffrage  in  America 
has  set  an  example  which  Europe  has  felt  herself  con- 
strained to  follow,  so  it  is  certain  that  the  irresistible 
tendency  to  equalization  of  conditions  among  civilized 
nations  would  compel  imitation  in  this  particular  also. 
And  thus  the  enfranchisement  of  women  in  America 
would  be  the  signal  for  the  enfranchisement  of  women 
throughout  the  civilized  world. 

Momentous  as  would  be  this  change,  and  far-reach- 
ing its  consequences,  it  implies  no  sudden  shock  or 
overturning  of  establishMjorder,  such  as  has  attended 
potitical  changes  of  far  less  importance  and  significance. 
We  are  well  aware  that  this  Convention  is  no  revolu-- 
tionary  tribunal  assembled  to  sap  the  foundations,  or  to 
overthrow  the  structure,  of  existing  society.  But  the 
wise  foresight  which  has  imbedded  in  our  State  Consti- 
tution the  provision  for  its  own  amendment  every  quar- 
ter of  a  century,  admits  by  implication  that  in  course  of 
time,  and  in  the  orderly  evolution  of  complex  modern 
societies,  new  conditions  are  liable  to  arise,  sufficiently 
serious  to  demand  the  modification  of  even  our  funda- 
mental organic  law.  Such  new  conditions  have  arisen 
in  the  status  of  women. 

Since  1846,  when  was  framed  the  Constitution  under 
which  this  State  has  since  lived,  immense  changes  have 
been  effected  in  the  industrial,  legal,  and  educational 
status  of  women.  The  tremendous  influence  of  un- 
trammelled liberty  of  thought,  in  America,  has  brought 


Appendix,  201 

about,  not  only  an  unrivalled  degree  of  liberty  for  men, 
but  a  degree  of  personal  liberty  for  women  hitherto  un- 
paralleled. The  tremendous_agtiyity_of_jndustrial  ex- 
pansion,  has  drawn  women  into  the  vortex,  of  industriaU 
lifey^o  that  they  have  become  important  and  recognized 
factors  in  the  wealth  of  the  State. 

In  1840,  only  half  a  dozen  forms^of  employment  other 
than  household  labor  were  open  to  women.  In  1884 
they  were  found  employed  in  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
four  subdivisions  of  industries  catalogued  in  the  census. 
In  1892,  it  has  been  shown  that  there  are  few  lines  of^ 
remunerative  employment  not  open  to  women.  Th^ 
United  States  Census  of  1880  showed  more  than  two  am 
a  half  million  women  engaged  in  gainful  employmentsj 
And  of  these  over  360,000  were  so  engaged  in  the  Stat< 
of  New  York. 

We  believe  that  a  proper  study  of  the  facts  of  history 
shows  that  women  have  never  been — as  is  sometimes 
asserted — a  dependent  class  ;  that  even  when  confined 
to  household  labors,  their  work  has  been  of  a  char- 
acter and  importance  to  as  justly  demand  recognition  by 
the  State,  as  that  of  work  carried  on  in  the  wholesale 
factories.  In  the  great  department  of  agricultural  em- 
ployments, that  constitutes  an  entire  fourth  of  all  the 
industries  enumerated  on  the  census,  the  wives  of  the 
farmers  bear  a  full  share  of  the  work  of  the  farm,  even 
though  their  work  is  not  catalogued  among  the  gainful 
occupations.  Even  when  the  men  who  furnish  the  raw 
material  for  their  industry  are  the  men  of  their  own 
family — their  fathers,  husbands,  or  brothers, — the  women 
who  prepare  the  food,  who  make  the  clothing,  and  who 
keep  in  order  the  habitation  of  the  men  of  the  State, 


f 


202  Appendix, 

should  be  justly  reckoned  among  its  productive  laborers, 
and  not,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  assumed  to  be  idlers, 
dependent  on  the  bounty  of  relatives.  When,  however, 
the  women,  from  choice  or  necessity,  cross  the  threshold 
of  their  homes,  and  engage  in  distinctly  non-domestic 
employments,  no  further  illusion  is  possible  as  to  their 
position.  They  have  entered  the  ranks  of  industrial 
producers,  have  become  independent  contributors 
towards  the  wealth  of  the  community,  and  are  so  recog- 
nized on  the  census.  From  this  moment  their  distinct 
recognition  as  individuals  by  the  State,  as  units  in  its 
body  politic,  entitled  to  an  equal  place  with  all  other 
units  discharging  the  same  or  equivalent  functions,  be- 
comes an  imperative  necessity,  a  demand  to  be  formu- 
lated alike  by  expediency,  by  justice,  and  by  common 
sense.  In  a  republican  industrial  community,  those  to 
whom  such  equal  recognition  is  refused,  fall  out  of  the 
ranks  of  citizens,  or  never  enter  them.  Whatever  may 
be  the  personal  privileges  of  their  lot,  whatever  the  legal 
protection  accorded  to  their  earnings,  the  public  status 
of  such  a  class  remains  strictly  that  of  aliens.  At 
the  present  moment  this  vast  and  constantly  growing 
army  of  women  industrials  constitutes  an  alien  class. 
The  privation  for  this  class  of  political  right  to 
defend  its  interests  is  only  masked,  but  not  compen- 
sated by  its  numerous  inter-relations  with  those  who 
have  rights.  The  menace  offered  to  the  harmonious 
equilibrium  of  the  State,  by  the  presence  in  it  of  this 
alien  class,  is  concealed  by  the  peculiar  physical  weak- 
ness of  its  members,  which  renders  them  incapable  of 
physical  violence.  But  a  menace  may  lie  in  a  poison  or 
a  narcotic,  as  well  as  in  a  blow.      Where — as  in  a  demo- 


Appendix,  203 

cratic  society  is  the  case — it  is  necessary  for  every  one 
to  be  alert,  vigilant,  intensely  awake,  the  apathy  of  aliens, 
the  indifference  of  aliens,  the  inability  of  aliens  to  unite 
for  the  common  good,  is  as  dangerous  as  a  dead-weight 
clogging  the  wheels  of  delicate  machinery.  Women 
industrials  contribute  to  the  wealth  of  the  State,  yet 
often,  through  their  relative  helplessness,  embarrass  the 
progress  of  their  fellow-producers.  Conscious  of  their 
individual  weakness,  and  ignorant  of  their  strength  in 
combination,  they  are  constantly  liable  to  weaken  the 
strength  of  combinations  made  by  those  stronger  than 
themselves.  Weakness  kills  force,  for  force  can  suffer 
and  die,  but  weakness  desires  to  live.  Innocent  Deli- 
lahs,  the  working  women  are  often  employed  by  the 
Philistines  to  undermine  the  strength  of  the  Labor  Sam- 
soTL^As  perpetual  minors,  they  should  be  entitled  to 
protection  from  the  State.  But  the  State  is  no  foster- 
mother  ;  it  only  protects  those  who  can  protect  them- 
Iselves  ;  and  its  last  stretch  of  courtesy  is  reached  when 
it  has  put  every  one  in  a  position  to  energetically  demand 
and  secure  their  own  protection. 

It  is  not  as  industrials  alone  that  women  to-day  occupy 
impQrta,nt  relations  to  the  wealth  of  the  State.  _Thev  are 
large  holders  of  property,  acquired  either  through  their 
own  exertions,  through  gift,"ihrough  marital  right,  or  by 
inheritance.  It  is  estimated  that  throughout  the  State 
women  hold  property  in  their  own  name  to  the  amount 
of  at  least  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  In  the  little 
city  of  Rochester  alone  they  pay  taxes  on  twenty-nine 
millions  ;  in  the  city  of  Brooklyn  on  a  hundred  and 
three  millions, — or  twenty-two  per  cent,  of  all  the  tax- 
able property  of  the  city. 


204  Appendix, 

On  this  immense  property  women  pay  taxes,  and  yet 
remain  unrepresented  in  the  legislatures  that  apportion 
the  taxation.  It  is  not  necessary  to  remind  this  Conven- 
tion that  from  the  beginning  of  history  the  question  of 
taxation  has  constituted  a  continually  recurring  griev- 
ance. The  equitable  adjustment  of  taxation  is  one  of 
the  surest  indications  that  a  government  is  just  and  a 
people  prosperous.  The  insistent  demand  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  people  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  that  no  gov- 
ernment shall  tax  a  people,  but  that  the  people  alone, 
through  their  representatives,  shall  tax  themselves,  has 
been  a  chief  influence  in  securing  for  these  peoples  free- 
dom, limitless  expansion,  and  power.  The  only  reason 
that  it  has  been  deemed  just  to  tax  women  without  rep- 
resentation is  that,  until  very  recently,  women — that  is 
at  least  those  holding  the  normal  position  of  their  sex  in 
marriage — have  not  really  possessed  their  own  property  ; 
they  have  not  been,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  persons. 

Two  years  after  the  session  of  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention in  1846,  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  urged  by  the  representations  of  Mrs.  Stanton  and 
other  women  working  for  suffrage,  did  for  women  in 
regard  to  the  law  the  very  thing  we  now  pray  this  Con- 
vention to  secure  the  means  of  doing  in  regard  to 
political  status — it  made  married  women  persons.  The 
women,  whose  personality  up  to  that  precise  date  had 
been,  in  the  language  of  the  Common  Law,  "  merged  in 
that  of  their  husbands,"  were  then  disengaged  as  distinct 
individuals.  By  a  series  of  enactments  extending  from 
1848  to  1862,  a  married  woman  became  entitled  to  hold 
her  property  instead  of  being  held  by  it :  to  administer 
it,  to  bequeath  it  by  will,  contract  for  it,  to  sue  and  be 


Appendix,  205 

sued — in  her  own  name, — to  assume,  in  fact,  all  the  re- 
sponsibilities towards  herself,  her  inheritance,  her  earn- 
ings, and  finally  her  children,  which  belonged  to  a  woman 
who  had  no  husband  to  represent  her,  or  to  a  man 
entitled,  in  law  and  in  politics,  to  represent  himself. 

This  Convention  is  thronged  with  lawyers,  among  the 
ablest  in  the  State.  We  know  that  of  all  classes  of  men 
in  the  community,  lawyers,  from  the  very  nature  of  their 
preoccupations  and  habitual  lines  of  thought,  must  be 
the  most  conservative.  Yet  we  appeal  to  them,  as  best 
fitted  to  answer,  whether  any  change  of  statute  or  con- 
stitutional law,  except  those  which  emancipated  slaves, 
could  effect,  or  could  imply,  so  complete  a  revolution  in 
ideas,  could  determine  so  great  a  change  in  status,  as 
that  which  made  of  women  who  had  been  legally 
non-existent,  persons^  with  full  legal  and  individual 
responsibilities  ? 

It  will  be  as  logical  for  this  Convention  to  complete 
the  legislation  of  1848  by  now  equalizing  the  political 
rights  of  women,  as  it  was  for  the  French  Revolution  of 
1848  to  confer  political  rights  upon  the  men  who  had 
become  equal  before  the  law  in  1793. 

The  industrial  work  of  women,  the  possession  of  inher- 
ited wealth,  the  legal  emancipation,  and  enforced  assump- 
tion of  responsibility,would  all  have  been  inadequate  with- 
out correlative  improvement  in  the  education  of  women. 
So  rapid  has  been  this  improvement,  so  generally  is  now 
accepted  the  claim  of  women  to  the  highest  education, 
that  it  is  often  forgotten  in  how  recent  times  women 
were  refused  access  to  even  the  lowest.  Less  than  a 
hundred  years  ago,  in  this  State  and  in  New  England, 
girls  were   excluded  from   even  the  elementary  public 


2o6  Appendix, 

schools  ;  or,  when  admitted,  untaught  even  in  arithme- 
tic ;  or,  when  this  began  to  be  conceded,  allowed  to 
learn  addition,  but  forbidden  to  proceed  to  the  three 
other  rules.  Not  until  182 1  was  a  high  school  open  for 
women,  and  that  was  at  Troy,  New  York. 

This  State  has  taken  the  lead,  not  only  in  legislation 
for  women,  but  in  the  education  of  women.  In  1865  the 
first  institution  claiming  to  confer  collegiate  instruction 
was  founded  by  Matthew  Vassar  at  Poughkeepsie.  Up 
to  1890,  nine  hundred  graduates  had  left  this  one  insti- 
tution. In  1872,  women  were  admitted  to  the  great 
Cornell  State  University  at  Ithaca.  In  1875,  a  New 
York  millionaire  made  his  initial  gift  of  $250,000  for  the 
residence  of  women  students  at  Cornell.  In  1889,  Bar- 
nard College  received  its  official  sanction  and  grant  of 
affiliation  from  the  Trustees  of  Columbia  College — one 
of  the  oldest  universities  in  the  United  States, — and  in 
1893  a  class  of  girls  thence  received  their  academic 
diplomas  together  with  the  Columbia  students. 

In  1849  the  first  woman  physician,  Elizabeth  Black- 
well,  received  her  diploma  at  Geneva.  The  first  hos- 
pital in  the  world  to  be  conducted  by  women  physicians, 
the  New  York  Infirmary,  was  founded  by  Elizabeth 
Blackwell  in  1857,  and  its  Medical  College  secured  a 
legal  charter  from  the  State  in  1867.  The  great  medical 
societies  of  the  county  and  State  of  New  York  were 
almost  the  first  to  officially  recognize  women  physicians, 
and  put  an  end  to  an  arduous  struggle  for  equal  rights, 
which  resembles  point  by  point  that  which  is  now  going 
on  to  secure  equal  political  rights.  Nor  have  the  activi- 
ties of  educated  women  been  confined  to  this  one  sphere 
of  professional  or  public  work.     The  Normal  Schools  of 


Appendix,  207 

Albany,  New  York,  and  Oswego  have  trained  several 
generations  of  teachers,  to  whose  hands  is  now  mainly- 
entrusted  the  primary  and  secondary  education  of  the 
youth  of  both  sexes  throughout  the  State.  Through  the 
public  press  women  share  in  increasing  numbers  and 
with  increasing  influence  in  moulding  public  opinion. 
During  the  civil  war  the  women  of  this  State  were 
among  the  foremost  in  the  patriotic  work  of  aiding, 
encouraging,  and  practically  caring  for  the  soldiers  of 
our  armies.  A  New  York  woman  and  veteran  philan- 
thropist, Abby  Hopper  Gibbs,  directed  hospitals  on  the 
Potomac.  The  Sanitary  Commission  originated  in  a 
parlor  conference  called  by  a  New  York  woman.  Dr. 
Elizabeth  Blackwell,  and  during  four  years  consumed 
the  energies  of  hundreds  of  New  York  women  under  the 
lead  of  one  whose  name  is  historic — Louisa  Lee  Schuyler. 

In  1873  a  group  of  New  York  ladies,  headed  by  Miss 
Schuyler,  organized  the  State  Charities  Aid  Association, 
and  inaugurated  reform  in  the  administration  of  the 
hospitals,  almshouses,  prisons,  and  insane  asylums 
throughout  the  State.  In  1876,  in  partial  recognition  of 
the  value  of  this  work,  Governor  Tilden  appointed  one 
of  the  members  of  the  Association — Josephine  Shaw 
Lowell — as  a  member  of  the  State  Board  of  Charities, 
the  first  official  appointment  ever  made  to  a  woman  in 
this  State.  In  1887  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of  New  York 
appointed  two  women  to  serve  on  the  School  Board  ; 
and  in  1892  a  large  number  of  women  were  sent  as 
official  delegates  from  New  York  to  the  Woman's  Board 
of  the  World's  Fair. 

In  perfectly  natural  sequence  to  all  these  manifesta- 
tions of  professional  and  social  activity  on  the  part  of 


2o8  Appendix, 

women,  and  as  a  possibly  unconscious  recognition  of  the 
value  of  this  activity  for  the  welfare  of  the  State,  the 
Legislature  in  1888  threw  open  to  women  the  profession 
of  law.  This  is  the  profession  whose  exercise  stands  so 
closely  related  to  political  prerogative  that,  in  both 
Italy  and  Belgium,  women,  though  admitted  to  medi- 
cine, have  been  recently  refused  admission  to  the  bar, 
on  the  ground  that  they  must  be  disqualified  for  this 
profession  so  long  as  they  remained  deprived  of  political 
rights. 

In  the  State  of  New  York  the  necessity  for  the  fran- 
chise as  an  indispensable  preliminary  to  the  exercise  of 
public  functions  presumed  to  be  suitable  for  women, 
has  been  judicially  affirmed  in  another  connection.  The 
Supreme  Court,  late  in  the  year  1893,  decided  that  the 
law  passed  in.  1880  permitting  women  to  vote  for  School 
Commissioner  was  unconstitutional,  and  that  women 
could  not  exercise  an  influence  nor  have  a  voice  in  the 
public  schooling  of  their  own  children,  until  they  should 
have  been  empowered  to  do  so  by  means  of  a  constitu- 
tional amendment. 

This  decision  has  become  the  incident  to  precipitate 
the  whole  discussion  of  woman  suffrage  within  the  range 
of  immediate  practical  issues.  We  believe  that  future 
ages  will  class  it  with  that  famous  levy  of  illegal  ship- 
money,  whose  resistance  by  John  Hampden  laid  the 
modern  foundation  for  the  liberties  of  England. 

It  was  impossible,  in  face  of  the  immense  evolution  of 
the  status  of  women,  personal,  industrial,  legal,  educa- 
tional, and  social,  not  to  suggest  their  practical  partici- 
pation in  one  affair  which  so  immediately  concerns 
women,  namely,  the   schooling   of   children.     In   New 


Appendix,  209 

York  City  alone  are  over  three  thousand  female  teachers. 
It  seemed  impossible  to  hold  longer  to  the  doctrine  that 
where  so  many  women  had  been  deemed  capable  of  the 
expert  work  involved  in  teaching,  none  should  be  quali- 
fied, none  should  have  the  right  to  a  voice  in  the  selec- 
tion of  the  officers  who  were  to  superintend  the  teaching. 
Yet  this  contradiction,  deemed  impossible  by  the 
universal  common-sense  of  the  community,  has  been 
pronounced  entrenched  in  all  the  authority  of  the  law 
by  the  Supreme  Court.  And  it  is  very  well  that  it 
should  be  so.  The  contradiction  which  pronounces  unfit 
to  vote,  the  women  who  have  been  solemnly  ordained  fit 
to  teach,  is  hardly  more  flagrant  than  that  now  embodied 
in  the  laws  of .  twelve  States  of  the  Union,  which 
declares  that  women  may  elect  officers  to  the  school 
board,  but  may  not  exercise  any  other  right  of  suffrage. 

It  is  in  the  line  of  march  which  the  thought  of  this 
State  has  pursued  for  the  last  fifty  years  to  declare  that 
all  exercise  of  public  function, — all  expression  of  pub- 
lic choice — is  an  act  of  sovereignty,  and  can  only  be 
performed  by  those  who  have  been  empowered  for  such 
acts. 

The  issue  is  thus  most  distinctly,  most  authoritatively 
stated.  At  the  very  moment  that  the  women  of  this 
State  have  reached  a  degree  of  development,  have  de- 
monstrated a  social  capacity,  absolutely  unknown  until 
the  present  half  century  ;  at  the  very  moment  when,  co- 
incidently,  the  enlargement  of  the  franchise  has  brought 
into  the  electorate  classes  also  hitherto  unknown;  that 
same  moment  is  chosen  in  which  to  reduce  women  to  a 
degree  of  political  inferiority  which  is  also  absolutely 
unprecedented. 


2IO  Appendix, 

No  political  experiment  is  more  recent,  has  had  so  far 
a  shorter  span  of  duration,  than  that  of  universal  man- 
hood suffrage.  Only  little  by  little  have  been  abolished 
the  restrictions  of  church  membership,  of  education,  and 
of  modest  property  qualification,  which  formerly  pre- 
vailed throughout  the  United  States.  The  farthest  limit 
of  possible  extension  of  masculine  franchise  was  reached 
when,  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  the  right  of  suffrage 
was  bestowed  on  the  newly  emancipated  slaves. 

Until,  practically,  to-day  the  inequalities  of  political 
rights  have  been  along  lines  of  social  class  distinction. 
The  well-born,  the  powerful,  the  educated,  the  rich, 
have  ruled.  The  poor,  the  ignorant,  the  helpless  have 
submitted.  Macaulay  declares  that  the  upper  and  middle 
orders  are  the  natural  representatives  of  the  human  race. 
Whether  advisably  or  not,  it  is  they  who  have  been  the 
representatives.  Thus  it  has  happened  that  women, 
though  unenfranchised,  and  submitted  to  the  personal 
sovereignty  of  the  men  of  their  own  families  and  own 
class,  have  enjoyed  superiority  to  and  even  actual  supre- 
macy over  thousands  of  men  in  lower  classes.  But 
to-day,  for  the  first  time,  classes  have  been  indistinguish- 
ably  fused  ;  all  previous  lines  of  cleavage  have  been 
consolidated  into  one  great  line  of  demarcation,  which 
makes  a  political  class  out  of  a  sex.  For  the  first  time, 
all  political  right,  privilege,  and  power  reposes  undis- 
guisedly  on  the  one  brutal  fact  of  sex,  unsupported,  un- 
tempered,  unalloyed  by  any  attribute  of  education,  any 
justification  of  intelligence,  any  glamour  of  wealth,  any 
prestige  of  birth,  any  insignia  of  actual  power.  For  the 
first  time,  all  women,  no  matter  how  well  born,  how  well 
educated,  how  intelligent,  how  rich,  how  serviceable  to 


Appe7idix,  2 1 1 

the  State,  have  been  rendered  the  political  inferiors  of 
men,  no  matter  how  base-born,  how  poverty-stricken, 
how  ignorant,  how  vicious,  how  brutal.  The  pauper  in 
the  almshouse  may  vote,  the  lady  who  devotes  herself  to 
getting  that  almshouse  made  habitable  may  not.  The 
tramp  who  begs  cold  victuals  in  the  kitchen  may  vote  ; 
the  heiress  who  feeds  him,  and  endows  a  university  may 
not.  Communities  are  agitated  and  Legislatures  con- 
vulsed to  devise  means  to  secure  the  right  of  suffrage  to 
the  illiterate  voter.  And  the  writers,  journalists,  physi- 
cians, teachers,  the  wives  and  daughters  and  the  com- 
panions of  the  best  educated  men  in  the  State,  are  left 
in  silence  ;  blotted  out,  swamped,  obliterated  behind  this 
cloud  of  often  besotted  ignorance.  To-day,  the  immi- 
grants pouring  in  through  the  open  gates  of  our  seaport 
towns — the  Indian  when  settled  in  severalty, — the  negro 
hardly  emancipated  from  the  degradation  of  two  hun- 
dred years  of  slavery, — may  all  share  in  the  Sovereignty 
of  the  State.  The  white  woman — the  American  woman, 
— the  woman  in  whose  veins  runs  the  blood  of  those  heroic 
colonists  who  founded  our  country,  of  those  women 
who  helped  to  sustain  the  courage  of  their  husbands  in 
the  Revolutionary  War  ;  the  woman  who  may  have 
given  the  flower  of  her  youth  and  health  in  the  service 
of  our  Civil  War — this  woman  is  excluded.  To-day 
women  constitute  the  only  class  of  sane  people  excluded 
from  the  franchise,  the  only  class  deprived  of  political 
representation,  except  the  tribal  Indians  and  the  Chinese. 
Sirs  :  We  dare  to  assert  that  this  is  a  monstrous 
anomaly;  and  further,  though  commonly  supposed  to 
continue  an  immemorable  tradition,  is  really  an  im- 
mense  innovation  on   all   systems   of  hitherto  existing 


2 1 2  Appendix, 

order.  It  is  an  anomaly  which  of  itself  suffices  to  ex- 
plain much  of  the  dangerous  vulgarization  of  political 
ideal  which  has  lately  been  noticed  among  us, — much  of 
the  fashionable  contempt  which  is  beginning  to  be  ex- 
pressed for  Popular  Sovereignty.  It  is  possible  for  a 
Sovereign  to  have  defects,  vices,  and  yet  retain  respect. 
But  the  suspicion  of  a  base  birth,  or  an  illegitimate  ori- 
gin, suffices  to  cover  him  with  ignominy.  Until  now, 
the  exclusion  of  women  from  the  Sovereignty  has  been 
justified  by  the  fear  that  their  immense  inferiority  would 
infuse  a  contemptible  weakness  into  the  body  politic. 
But  to-day,  the  one  form  of  strength  of  which  women 
are  deprived,  is  the  very  form  which  has  ceased  to  be  es- 
sential for  the  purpose.  Necessary  for  pugilistic  con- 
tests, which  are  forbidden  by  law,  it  is  irrelevant  to  the 
qualifications  of  those  who  either  administer  or  vote  for 
a  government  founded  on  opinion.  Conversely,  the 
form  of  strength  which  is  so  greatly  needed  in  the 
counsels  of  the  Republic,  "  the  reason  firm,  the  temper- 
ate will,  endurance,  foresight,  patience,  skill,"  are  ad- 
judged by  the  highest  authority  to  be  the  natural  dower 
of  thousands  of  women.  Where,  then,  does  the  legiti- 
macy of  the  Sovereignty  lie, — with  the  thousands  who 
have  the  power  without  the  necessary  qualification,  or 
with  those  other  thousands  who  have  the  qualifications 
but  are  forcibly  excluded  from  the  power  ? 

So  lax  in  these  facile  days  has  become  the  conception 
of  power,  so  loose  and  confused  the  Idea  of  Sovereignty, 
that  we  are  often  advised  not  to  press  our  claim,  because 
it  really  makes  no  difference  who  rules.  Because,  it  is 
said,  in  a  democracy,  sovereignty  is  so  minutely  subdi- 
vided that  the  infinitesimal  crumbs  which  fall  to  each 


Appendix,  213 

man's  portion  are  not  worth  scrambling  for.  But  we  re- 
fuse to  think  of  the  Republic  as  a  barnyard  filled  with 
insignificant  fowl!  If  the  right  to  rule  has  been  removed 
from  certain  men  on  account  of  their  inadequacy,  it  has 
been  transferred  to  Man,  and  to  such  part  of  the  human 
race  as  can  by  their  strength  of  soul  make  good  its  claim 
to  such  lofty  right.  Of  such  humanity  we  are  a  part. 
And  while  among  those  to  whom  at  present  is  exclu- 
sively entrusted  the  power  are  thousands,  admitted  on  all 
sides  to  be  unworthy  of  it,  there  are  among  us  thousands 
of  women  intrinsically  fitted  for  those  functions  of  citi- 
zenship which  can  only  by  an  eclipse  of  political  faith 
be  despised. 

Capacity  to  bear  arms,  in  fulfilment  of  military  duty, 
is  not,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  reckoned  among  the 
necessary  qualifications  of  voters.  Nor  indeed  has  such 
capacity  ever  sufficed  to  confer  a  share  in  the  sover- 
eignty. The  feudal  knights  of  the  middle  ages  exer- 
cised some  sort  of  suffrage, — but  the  men-at-arms  who  fol- 
lowed them  to  battle  did  not.  The  Duke  of  Cambridge, 
Commander-in-chief  of  the  British  Army,  has — like  his 
predecessors  for  six  hundred  years,  been  able  to  vote. 
But,  until  the  other  day,  the  men  who  make  up  the  army 
and  do  the  fighting  had  no  vote,  and  many  of  them 
are  still  unenfranchised.  Even  in  France  and  Germany, 
where  for  a  few  years  universal  manhood  suffrage  has 
existed,  and  universal  military  duty  has  been  revived, 
the  right  of  suffrage  and  the  duty  of  bearing  arms  are 
not  coterminous.  There,  as  here,  men  over  forty-five, 
the  only  sons  of  widows,  teachers,  clergymen,  physicians, 
men  affected  with  slight  bodily  infirmities,  are  exempt 
from  military  duty  in  the  field,  but  are   not   therefore 


214  Appendix, 

deprived  of  the  right  of  suffrage  at  home.  In  our  State, 
even  the  universal  training  for  arms  is  dispensed  with  ; 
no  conscription  exists  ;  and  the  only  occasion  on  which 
men  can  be  actually  compelled  to  fight,  is  in  the  case 
of  a  war  of  such  magnitude  as  necessitates  a  draft  in 
excess  of  the  contingents  furnished  by  volunteers.  In  the 
entire  course  of  our  history,  since  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrims  or  the  settlement  of  New  York,  such  a  war  has 
arisen  once  ! 

We  do  not  live  in  the  midst  of  an  armed  camp  like 
France  and  Germany  ;  we,  like  our  English  kindred, 
reserve  our  war  forces  for  the  day  when  they  shall  be 
really  needed.  During  the  interval,  we  are  an  industrial 
community,  with  a  government  of  the  people,  for  the 
people,  and  by  the  people,  a  government  professedly  and 
actually  founded  on  Public  Opinion.  The  will  of  the 
majority  rules,  for  the  time  being,  not  because,  as  has  been 
crudely  asserted,  it  possesses  the  power,  by  brute  force, 
to  compel  the  minority  to  obey  its  behests  ;  but  be- 
cause, after  ages  of  strife,  it  has  been  found  more  con- 
venient, more  equitable,  more  conducive  to  the  welfare 
of  the  State,  that  the  minority  should  submit,  until, 
through  argument  and  persuasion,  they  shall  have  been 
able  to  win  over  the  majority. 

Now  that  this  stage  in  the  evolution  of  modern 
societies  has  been  reached,  it  has  become  possible  for 
women  to  demand  their  share  also  in  the  expression  of 
the  Public  Opinion  which  is  to  rule.  They  could  not 
claim  this  while  it  was  necessary  to  defend  opinions  by 
arms  ;  but  this  is  no  longer  either  necessary  or  expected. 
They  could  not  even  claim  a  place  among  the  authorized 
factors  of  Public  Opinion,  so  long  as,   in  the  universal 


Appendix,  215 

judgment  of  the  world,  women  had  no  opinions,  and 
could  have  none  worth  having.  But  this  is  no  longer 
believed.  The  moment  therefore  has  at  last  arrived 
when,  in  an  Industrial  Society,  whose  conflicts  have  be- 
come those  of  ideas,  and  whose  arts  the  arts  of  peace, 
women  may,  with  equal  justice  and  decorum,  come  for- 
ward to  claim  a  place  among  the  other  powers  of  the 
earth.  Should  war  actually  arise,  the  fact  that  the 
political  action  of  women  had  been  added  to  that  of  the 
non-combatant  forces  of  society,  could  surely  do  nothing 
to  weaken  the  strength  of  the  forces  which  were  actually 
enlisted  to  fight. 

We  do  not  admit  that  exemption  from  military  duty 
is  a  concession  of  courtesy,  for  which  women  should  be 
so  grateful  as  to  refrain  from  asking  for  anything  else. 
The  military  functions  performed  by  men,  and  so  often 
perverted  to  most  atrocious  uses,  have  never  been  more 
than  the  equivalent  for  the  function  of  child-bearing  im- 
posed by  nature  upon  women.  It  is  not  a  fanciful  nor 
sentimental,  it  is  an  exact  and  just  equivalence.  The ' 
man  who  exposes  his  life  in  battle,  can  do  no  more  than 
his  mother  did  in  the  hour  she  bore  him.  And  the  func- 
tions of  maternity  persist,  and  will  persist  to  the  end  of 
time, — while  the  calls  to  arms  are  becoming  so  faint  and 
rare  that,  three  times  since  the  Revolutionary  War,  an 
entire  generation  of  men  has  grown  up  without  having 
heard  them. 

If  children  are  desired  in  households  to  make  the 
happiness  of  their  parents,  none  the  less  are  they  needed 
in  the  State  of  which  they  are  to  become  the  citizens. 
Those  therefore  who  bear  and  rear  them  do  most  cer- 
tainly perform  a  social  function,  and  one  of  transcendental 


2 1 6  Appendix, 

importance.  All  social  events,  all  political  action,  con- 
verge ultimately  upon  these  households  and  affect  these 
children.  How  then  can  it  be  fitting,  that  such  political 
action,  framed  as  we  know  it  to  be  by  the  dictates  of 
Public  Opinion,  should  remain  officially  uninfluenced  by 
the  mothers  of  the  State  ?  How  can  it  be  just  that  those 
mothers  themselves  remain  within  the  body  politic  as 
aliens,  their  will  unrepresented,  their  personalities  non- 
existent ?  To  affirm  that  this  is  of  no  consequence,  to  pre- 
tend that  these  women  are  virtually  represented  because 
laws  protect  their  property,  and  because  they  may  be 
defended  against  personal  violence,  is  simply  to  recur  to 
the  state  of  opinion  which  prevailed  when  the  person- 
ality of  the  married  women  was,  in  truth,  merged,  abso- 
lutely submerged,  before  the  law.  Before  1848,  the 
affirmation  was  logical  and  consistent.  To-day  it  is  in- 
consistent,— a  futile  anachronism. 

To-day  is  certainly  favorable  to  the  treatment  of 
women  with  kindness,  consideration,  and  even  respect. 
The  moment  is,  however,  less  propitious  to  the  discus- 
sion of  their  rights,  for  all  interest  in  the  question  of 
rights  seems,  for  the  moment,  to  have  flagged.  For  the 
first  time  in  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  there  is  a  lull  in 
the  mighty  series  of  conflicts  which  have  been  waging 
so  successfully  to  secure  human  rights.  The  lull  in  the 
interest  is  chiefly  due  to  the  success  of  the  struggle.  So 
many  rights  have  been  conquered  that  it  seems  to  many 
as  if  all  had  been  gained.  Worse, — because  some  roseate 
hopes  have  been  disappointed, — we  are  sometimes  told 
that  nothing  has  been  gained.  We  are  sometimes  told 
that  democracy  is  a  failure  ;  that  universal  suffrage  is  a 
curse  ;  that  the  very  conception  of  Rights,  conception 


Appendix,  2 1 7 

the  most  powerful,  the  most  majestic,  the  most  awful 
which  has  ever  dominated  the  world,  is  a  mere  abstrac- 
tion, as  useless  as  bodiless  ;  a  schoolboy  sophism,  a 
schoolgirl  metaphor  concocted  to  conceal  a  vacuum 
of  thought.  A  little  further,  and  we  shall  be  told  that 
our  Revolutionary  War  was  sordid  ;  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  the  clamor  of  a  drunken  mob  ;  that  the 
Revolution  of  1848  was  a  mere  paradox  of  metaphysi- 
cians ;  and  the  emancipation  of  American  slaves  a 
gigantic  mistake  due  to  the  blind  recklessness  of  a 
victorious  party  ! 

When  the  thoughts  of  men  have  for  the  moment  so 
generally  declined  to  this  dull  level,  it  is  well  that  they 
should  have  been  suddenly  uplifted  again  by  the  high 
errand  of  this  Convention.  The  moment  has  again 
recurred  when  the  people  must  preoccupy  themselves 
with  the  fundamental  doctrines  on  which  repose  the 
entire  framework  of  their  social  structure.  It  is  then 
seen,  and  will  be  seen  again  every  quarter  of  a  century, 
that  there  is  nothing  more  fundamental  in  a  given  social 
order  than  its  conception  of  Rights.  What  is  the  right 
thing  to  be  done  ?  whose  rights  may  have  been  de- 
frauded ;  how  rights  may  in  the  future  be  better  main- 
tained ; — these  are  the  very  questions  which  are  to  absorb 
the  energies  and  preoccupy  the  gravest  thought  of  this 
deliberative  body  throughout  the  summer. 

Our  Constitutional  Conventions  only  meet  once  in 
twenty  years  ;  but  the  problem  of  Rights  is  of  no  such 
intermittent  recurrence.  It  recurs  all  the  time, — daily  ; 
it  is  involved  in  every  transaction  effected  between  hu- 
man beings,  at  home  or  abroad,  in  business  or  in  poli- 
tics,  in    national   issues,   in   municipal    difficulties,   in 


2 1 8  Appendix. 

family  dissensions.  Rules  for  the  solution  of  this 
problem  are  expounded  every  week  in  the  churches, 
and  laid  down  every  day  in  the  law  courts.  No  per- 
sonal or  social  ideal  is  possible  without  a  conception  of 
rights,  and  every  lofty  character  manifests  its  superiority 
to  the  herd,  by  the  clearness  with  which  it  recognizes  the 
existence  of  rights,  and  by  the  unflinching  tenacity  with 
which  it  insists  upon  their  maintenance. 

Hence  the  danger,  the  vast  and  subtle  danger,  of  so 
educating  one  half  the  population  of  a  free  State,  that 
it  has  no  vivid  conception  of  Rights.  Why  should  we 
wonder  at  the  low  tone  which  habitually  prevails  at 
present  in  relation  to  public  affairs,  when  the  women 
who  stand  as  guardians  at  the  fountain  sources  and 
household  shrines  of  thought  are  trained  to  believe  that 
there  are  no  Rights,  but  only  Privileges,  Expediences, 
Immunities  ?  Can  those  who  cower  before  the  public 
ridicule  which  greets  the  enunciation  of  the  Rights  of 
Women  ;  who  are  habituated  to  stifle  generous  impulses 
for  their  own  larger  freedom  at  the  authoritative  dicta- 
tion of  the  men  they  see  in  power, — can  such  women  be 
relied  upon  to  nerve  the  nation's  heart  for  generous 
deeds  ? 

When  the  question  of  women's  right  to  a  direct  share 
in  the  popular  sovereignty  had  not  been  raised  ;  when 
political  rights  were  restricted  to  certain  social  classes, 
proudly  tenacious  of  their  privileges,  it  was  then  pos- 
sible for  women  also  to  share  the  pride,  and,  uncon- 
scious of  their  individual  subordination,  to  lend  the 
strength  of  their  influence  to  inspiring  their  men.  It 
was  possible  for  Volumnia  to  calm  the  blind  fury  of 
Coriolanus  ;  it  was  possible  for  Cornelia  to   train  the 


Appendix,  2 1 9 

patriotic  fervor  of  the  Gracchi.  But  this  time  has 
past.  For  good  or  for  ill,  the  question  of  the  Rights  of 
Women  has  been  raised,  and  will  not  down.  It  has 
taken  its  place  among  the  claims  of  all  disenfranchised 
classes,  and  will  not  be  excluded.  If  any  question  of 
rights  be  fundamental,  this  also  is  fundamental.  If  con- 
fusion of  ideas  and  apathy  be  ever-dangerous,  here  also 
it  is  disastrous. 

It  is  easy  to  assert,  it  is  impossible  to  prove  that  we 
sophistically  pervert  the  principles  of  democratic  govern- 
ment when  we  claim  that  these  apply  to  our  case  also. 
It  is  easy  to  say  in  two  breaths — for  it  has  been  reiter- 
ated in  one — that  women's  right  to  the  suffrage  is  not 
implied  in  democracy,  and  that  democracy,  after  fifty 
years  of  trial  has  proved  such  a  failure,  that  its  princi- 
ples must  now,  in  any  case,  be  abjured.  How  can 
democracy  prove  other  than  a  failure  when  the  citizens 
of  a  free  State  cease  to  believe  in  it !  How  can  the  illi- 
terate vote  become  other  than  a  danger  when  the  edu- 
cated voter  abstains  from  exercising  over  it  his  just  and 
natural  ascendancy  ?  How  can  political  affairs  move 
among  large  issues,  if  the  only  ideas  which  are  abroad, 
which  are  respected,  are  fatally  small?  What  other 
alternative  is  there  to  Public  Right,  but  Private  Greed  ? 
If  it  be  only  a  question  of  supposed  expediences, — what 
can  seem  more  expedient  to  every  man  than  to  fill  his 
own  pocket,  accumulate  his  own  illicit  fortune, — and 
retreat  to  whence  he  had  never  emerged, — the  under- 
ground cellar  of  his  private  life  ? 

Thus  it  is  that,  although  we  believe  our  demand  to  be 
fully  in  accord  with  public  utility,  and  to  meet  some  of 
the  most  serious  wants  of  the  time,  we  should  be  false  to 


2  20  Appendix, 

our  trust  did  we  rest  this  claim  primarily  upon  expe- 
diency. We  hope  to  show  that  the  concession  of  suffrage 
to  woman  will  be  practically  useful  in  innumerable  direc- 
tions ;  but  we  should  unworthily  belittle  our  case  did  we 
seek  to  introduce  it  on  the  ground  that  it  could  be  made 
subservient  to  anything  else.  We  demand  the  suffrage 
as  a  Right — not  in  a  metaphysical  sense, — but  because 
we  do  fulfil  all  the  essential  conditions  which  the  State 
has  proclaimed  necessary  to  qualify  for  the  electorate. 
We  demand  it,  because  to-day,  and  not  a  thousand  years 
ago, — because  in  the  State  of  New  York,  and  not  in 
France  or  Germany  or  Austria, — women  are  recognized 
by  law  and  custom  to  be  persons,  and  to  possess  intel- 
ligence entirely  equal  to  the  average  intelligence  of  those 
who  already  exercise  the  suffrage.  We  demand  it,  on  no 
new  principle,  but  on  the  double  principle  which  runs 
through  all  our  institutions,  namely  :  that  all  the  intel- 
ligence in  the  State  must  be  enlisted  for  its  welfare,  and 
that  all  the  weakness  in  the  community  must  be  repre- 
sented for  its  own  defence.  There  are  women  among 
us  of  intelligence,  of  wealth,  of  leisure,  of  high  charac- 
ter, who  only  demand  the  opportunity  to  serve  the 
State  nobly,  as  they  have  already  shown  their  ability  to 
promote  the  welfare  of  the  community  in  public  affairs. 
And  there  are  other  women  among  us — hard-working, 
patient,  industrious, — who  require  the  suffrage,  and  the 
opportunities  of  the  suffrage,  and  the  immense  practical 
education  of  the  suffrage,  to  enable  them  to  better  ad- 
vance the  interests  of  their  own  affairs.  And  there  are 
poor  and  weak  women  among  us,  defenceless  except  so 
far  as  they  may  be  touched  by  an  occasional  enthusiasm 
of  philanthropy,  who  require  the  status   of    a  definite 


Appendix,  221 

representation — a  medium  through  which  they  can  make 
their  wants  known — which  shall  do  for  them,  as  the 
suffrage  alone  has  been  able  to  do  for  other  masses  of 
the  poor  and  weak  :  give  them  means  to  defend  them- 
selves, enable  them  to  take  the  initial  step  in  rising  out 
of  otherwise  easily-forgotten  misery.'  In  a  community 
where  the  definition  of  a  social  unit  is  the  person  who 
casts  one  vote,  every  one  who  casts  no  vote  is  reckoned 
as  less  than  a  unit, — and  hence  suffers  in  the  social  esti- 
mate and  in  her  own.  Her  power  for  work  is  lessened, 
and  its  recompense  correlatively  diminished. 

It  is  to  these  same  poor  and  working  women  that  ob- 
jection is  most  often  made  when  we  demand  equal  suf- 
frage, and  when  we  embrace  in  our  demand  all  classes 
of  women, — because  the  suffrage  is  now  exercised  by  all 
classes  of  men.  It  is  said  that  these  women,  adding  an 
inherent  weakness  of  sex  to  the  weaknesses  of  ignorance 
and  poverty,  will  be,  even  more  than  the  men  of  their 
families,  subject  to  corrupt  influence,  liable  to  be  in- 
duced to  sell  their  votes  to  the  party,  or  even  to  the  pri- 
vate agents,  who  will  offer  the  highest  price  for  them. 
It  is  even  whispered  that  there  is,  in  large  cities,  a  class 
of  women,  whose  names  dare  not  be  mentioned  out  loud, 
who  would  be  solidly  voted  by  the  police, — and  that 
therefore  all  the  honest  and  virtuous  women  of  the  State 
must  remain  disfranchised  !  Was  ever  covert  insult 
so  distinctly  offered  to  American  womanhood  ! 

It  has  been  proposed,  on  other  occasions,  to  accord 
special  legal  recognition  to  these  unfortunate  women  :  to 
subject  them  to  a  slavery  even  more  stringent  than  that 
in  which  they  are  now  bound  :  to  record  their  names 
upon  the   municipal  archives,  not  in  order  that  their 


222  Appendix, 

defencelessness  might  be  represented,  but  so  that  the 
men  who  are  their  accomplices  in  degradation  might  be 
protected.  Other  women,  from  the  shelter  of  happy 
and  honored  homes,  have  successfully  resisted  this  ini- 
quitous proposal,  and  no  such  archaic  infamy  as  yet 
stains  the  legislature  of  this  State.  But  do  not  these 
facts,  does  not  the  prompt  reference  to  such  conditions, 
the  moment  a  demand  arises  for  political  freedom,  and 
political  representation  for  women,  itself  indicate  the 
ultimate  outcome,  the  last  and  darkest  effect,  of  the 
general  social  inequality  of  women  ? 

We  fully  believe  that  the  great  reason  why  the  lot  of 
masses  of  toiling  women  is  so  miserable,  is  because  on 
the  one  hand  women  have  never  been  accustomed  to 
band  together  for  self-development  and  self-protection  ; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  because  women  enjoying  personal 
protection  have  not  been  accustomed  to  think  of  the 
affairs  of  masses  of  women  and  children  as  their  especial 
concern.  The  assumption  still  holds  in  theory,  though 
daily  contradicted  by  facts, — that  all  the  concerns  of 
women  are  adequately  provided  for  by  the  solicitude  of 
their  own  families.  Yet  it  is  perfectly  well  known,  that 
society  was  obliged  to  enact  laws  to  protect  the  women 
and  children  working  in  factories  ;  not  only  against  the 
greed  of  the  employers  of  the  so-called  enlightened 
classes,  but  against  the  brutal  insistence  of  the  husbands 
and  fathers  who  tried  to  work  them  to  death. 

In  theory,  women  are  always  protected  at  home.  In 
fact,  laws  are  constantly  being  required  for  their  special 
protection.  Why  is  it  desirable  to  leave  such  legal  or 
social  protection  to  be  secured,  if  at  all,  by  tedious  and 
roundabout   methods, — through  petitions,   and  through 


Appendix,  223 

the  efforts  of  other  people,  whose  warmest  enthusiasm 
can  hardly  ever  equal  the  energy  of  those  who  speak  for 
themselves  ?  Why  should  not  the  women  have  the  right 
to  speak  for  themselves,  and  by  their  own  mouths  to 
make  their  own  wants  known  ? 

Herein  lies  the  true  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
illiterate  vote.  The  influence  of  the  women  who  are 
now  busily  engaged  in  civilizing  the  hordes  of  uncivilized 
people  in  our  midst,  will  be  utilized,  not  only  to  kindle 
the  lagging  interest  of  the  men  of  their  own  class,  but 
to  so  guide  ignorant  women  voters,  that  they  could  be 
made  to  counterbalance,  when  necessary,  the  votes  of 
ignorant  and  interested  men.  Here  is  a  broad  channel 
for  the  missionary  enthusiasm  of  women,  now  too  often 
allowed  to  run  to  waste  in  the  sands  of  foreign  heathen- 
dom. Success  in  such  direction  is  rendered  possible  by 
the  secrecy  of  the  ballot,  which  the  persistent  efforts  of 
public-spirited  men  have  secured.  Every  effort  to  im- 
prove the  purity  of  the  ballot  facilitates  the  participa- 
tion of  women  in  the  suffrage.  It  is  an  omen  of  splendid 
augury  that  this  very  Committee  before  which  our  amend- 
ment is  brought,  is  also  charged  with  the  grave  duty  of 
devising  measures  for  the  better  protection  of  the  ballot. 
We  could  ask  no  better  introduction  to  the  voters  of 
this  State  for  the  cause  of  Equal  Suffrage,  than  such 
intimate,  such  inseparable  association  with  the  cause  of 
Purity  of  the  Suffrage. 

In  bringing  this  cause  of  Equal  Suffrage  before  this 
Convention,  we  are  supported  by  the  approval  of  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women,  who  join  us,  because  they  be- 
lieve either  that  the  demand  is  just,  or  that  it  is  timely, 
or  that  it  is  favorable  to  their  own  interests,  or  that  it  is 


2  24  Appendix, 

ultimately  conducive  to  the  best  interests  of  the  State. 
Confessedly,  however,  the  demand  does  not  receive 
unanimous  support.  Did  it  do  so,  it  would  be  irresistible, 
while  we  are  aware  that  the  success  of  our  petition  is 
trembling  in  the  balance.  But  a  unanimous  demand 
for  anything  would  also  be  unprecedented  to  the  point 
of  the  miraculous. 

Not  all  who  fail  to  support  us  are  to  be  counted  among 
our  really  obstinate  opponents.  There  are  many  who 
applaud  the  participation  of  women  in  public  affairs, 
but  who  maintain  that  they  have  done  such  good  work 
without  the  ballot,  it  is  useless  to  confer  this  upon  them. 
This  view  is  too  inconsistent  to  deserve  commentary. 
More  solid  is  the  objection  of  those  who  distinctly  dis- 
like the  participation  of  women  in  public  affairs.  There 
are  thousands  who  still  maintain  the  immemorable  tradi- 
tion, that  the  world  is  destined  to  remain  forever  divided 
into  two  great  classes — the  men  to  go  out  in  the  world, 
the  women  to  stay  at  home  within  the  house.  These 
confound  the  historic  origin  of  conditions  with  the  per- 
manent law  of  conditions.  They  are  so  pleased  with 
women  in  their  differentiation  from  men,  that  they  dread 
any  change  which  may  seem  to  approximate  them  to 
men.  To  apply  to  the  case  of  women,  the  same  ideas  of 
Rights,  the  same  measure  of  liberties,  the  same  rules  for 
activities,  which  they  accept  for  men,  seems  to  such 
minds  almost  blasphemous,  and  revolting  alike  to  the 
most  elementary  instinct,  and  to  the  most  obvious  com- 
mon sense. 

We  certainly  do  claim,  however,  that  women,  however 
physically  different,  are,  mentally  and  morally,  not  essen- 
tially   different    from    men.     That   the    differences   in 


Appendix,  225 

faculty  which  exist  are  in  degree  and  quantity,  and  not 
in  kind.  That  it  is  the  overwhelming  preoccupation 
with  physical,  to  the  exclusion  of  mental  conditions, 
which  has  led  to  such  a  solid  system  of  beliefs  about 
women,  as  the  last  half  century,  through  multiple  prac- 
tical experience,  has  shown,  very  simply,  to  be  untrue. 
The  distance  to-day  between  the  estimate  of  women  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  oppose  and  those  who  favor 
their  enfranchisement  is  infinitesimal,  as  compared  with 
the  distance  which  has  been  traversed  on  the  subject  by 
the  minds  of  all  men  since  1846. 

There  are  some  undesirable  peculiarities  about  women, 
due  to  special  conditions  of  circumstance,  training,  and 
environment,  which  would  tend  to  disappear  where 
changes  in  such  environments  were  conducive  to  the 
greater  development  of  strength.  This,  indeed,  is  the 
fundamental  reason  for  desiring  such  changes  ;  since  no 
living  creature  or  class  of  creatures  can  have  a  more 
fundamental  desire  than  the  just  desire  to  grow,  to  be- 
come more  effective  in  whatever  is  given  them  to  do. 
There  are  other  peculiarities  about  women  which  are, 
on  the  contrary,  most  desirable  to  conserve,  and  which 
nature  cannot  fail  to  conserve,  and  even  intensify,  with 
every  increase  in  development  and  opportunity.  All 
such  qualities  originate  in  and  centre  round  the  func- 
tion of  maternity — the  special  relations  of  women  to 
their  children,  the  special  protection  due  to  the  mother 
from  the  father  of  their  children,  and  which  justifies  a 
correlative  degree  of  individual  subordination.  The  laws 
of  New  York,  as  they  stand  to-day,  establish  with  great 
clearness  these  complex  relations  of  women.  Women 
are  accorded  their  individual  rights  and  responsibilities 


226  Appendix, 

as  persons  ;  and  the  right  and  responsibility  to  guard 
the  persons  and  the  inheritance  of  their  children  ;  they 
are  given  a  right  to  maintenance  to  the  extent  to  which 
their  own  industrial  capacity  is  lessened  by  the  care  of 
their  children  ;  and  in  view  of  this,  they  are  constrained 
to  follow  the  domicile  of  their  husbands  so  long  as  he 
acquits  himself  of  his  own  responsibility. 

We  do  believe  that  this  special  relation  of  women  to 
children,  in  which  the  heart  of  the  world  has  always  felt 
there  was  something  sacred,  serves  to  impress  upon 
women  certain  tendencies,  to  endow  them  with  certain 
virtues  which  not  only  contribute  to  the  charm  which 
their  anxious  friends  fear  might  be  destroyed,  but  which 
will  render  them  of  special  value  in  public  affairs.  Their 
conservatism,  their  economy,  their  horror  of  waste,  their 
interest  in  personal  character,  the  very  simplicity  of 
their  judgment,  their  preoccupation  with  direct  and 
living  issues,  are  all  qualities  generated  by  the  special 
circumstances  which  have  surrounded  women,  and  must 
continue  to  surround  them.  These  can  not  be  broken 
down  by  the  fact  of  sharing  the  suffrage,  for  they  lie  far 
deeper  than  any  political  condition  ;  they  exist  in  the 
very  nature  of  things. 

A  single  phrase,  often,  but  none  too  often  repeated, 
sums  up  this  aspect  of  the  case.  To  the  extent  to  which 
women  resemble  men,  they  require  the  same  liberties  ; 
to  the  extent  to  which  they  differ,  they  require  their  own 
representation,  and  the  State  requires  their  special  in- 
fluence. Under  the  new,  the  extremely  new  regime  of 
universal  manhood  suffrage,  the  State  has  become  like  a 
mining  camp  on  the  frontier.  We  claim  that  it  should  be 
re-constituted  as  a  household,  where,  if  man  is  at  the 


Appendix,  227 

head,  for  the  protection  and  the  defence,  woman  shall 
have  her  equal  place  as  the  mother,  the  daughter,  the 
caretaker,  the  administrator,  the  conserver.  We  do  not 
propose,  after  all,  to  change  the  existing  sphere  of 
women.  Political  status  reflects  and  sanctions  social 
change — it  cannot  create  it.  Political  activities  may  be- 
come an  occupation — but  not  political  rights.  How 
many  women  would  engage  in  politics  were  they  so  em- 
powered— how  many  would  accept  office,  were  they 
elected,  it  is  impossible  to  foresee,  and  it  is  absolutely 
useless  to  discuss.  We  are  not  here  to  seek  privileges  for 
a  few — but  equal  opportunity  for  all.  We  are  not  here 
to  demand  the  maximum  responsibilities  in  the  gift  of 
the  State,  but  only  the  minimum  rights.  If  women  en- 
gage to-day  in  a  hundred  pursuits  outside  their  house- 
holds, it  is  not  the  suffrage  which  is  the  cause  of  this, 
for  they  do  not  possess  the  suffrage.  The  same  causes, 
industrial  and  intellectual,  which  have  led  to  a  social 
expansion  which  is  almost  a  revolution,  will  continue  to 
operate  ;  but  the  suffrage,  while  it  will  not  weaken,  can 
hardly  intensify  their  influence.  Women  will  not  be  sent 
into  a  new  place  by  possession  of  the  ballot.  Like  men, 
they  will  vote  in  the  places  where  they  already  stand — in 
the  mart,  the  factory,  the  place  of  business  ;  but  also  in 
the  schoolroom,  the  library,  the  hospital,  and — far  more 
oftei!  than  all — in  the  household.  If,  in  capacity,  taste, 
and  opportunity,  women  have  in  this  half  century,  ap- 
proximated towards  the  capacities  of  men,  it  is  not  in 
order  to  be  men  that  they  now  desire  to  vote.  It  is 
because  they  are — and  are  fully  satisfied  to  be — women. 
Because  they  are  women,  and  yielding,  and  ready  to 
give  way  to  others,  the  friends  of  this  cause  have  been 


2  28  Appendix, 

beset,  not  only  by  its  opponents,  but  by  many  half- 
hearted friends.  "  Your  demand  is  just,"  these  say,  "  but 
it  should  not  be  made  at  this  time.  The  times  are  too 
critical ;  there  are  too  many  things  must  be  done  first. 
Municipal  politics  must  be  purified  ;  minority  represen- 
tation must  be  secured  ;  democracy  must  grow  from  its 
first  crude  beginnings  ;  illiteracy  must  cease  to  exist  ; 
venal  votes  must  cease  to  be  bought  and  sold  ;  Catholics 
must  cease  to  struggle  for  the  schools  ;  Protestants  must 
cease  to  imitate  the  bigotry  of  sixteenth-century  Catho- 
lics ;  political  rings  must  be  dissolved  ;  the  power  of  boss 
rule  broken  ;  the  liquor  question  eliminated  from  poli- 
tics ;  the  Republican  party  be  raised  to  the  level  of 
Alexander  Hamilton,  and  the  Democrats  left  at  no  lower 
eminence  than  that  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  When  all  these 
things  shall  come  or  shall  have  been  accomplished — 
then,  and  not  till  then,  may  women,  who  really  entertain 
a  just  and  patriotic  concern  for  the  public  weal,  prefer 
their  claim,  and  modestly  demand  the  suffrage." 

Is  not  this  to  say  that  political  rights  may  be  demanded 
only  when  political  life  shall  have  ceased  to  exist  ? 

This  request  to  delay — this  specious  appeal  to  the  dis- 
interestedness of  women — is  the  same  dangerous  com- 
pliment proffered  in  1867  by  Horace  Greeley  on  behalf 
of  the  negro,  and  a  few  years  ago  by  Mr.  Gladstone  to 
the  women  of  England  on  behalf  of  Home  Rule, 

Who,  entrenched  in  an  accorded  privilege,  ever  re- 
garded the  claims  of  those  outside  as  other  than  unim- 
portant, insignificant,  visionary  ?  We  are  told  now  that 
the  common  sense  and  love  of  justice  of  all  civilized 
countries  applaud  all  efforts  to  secure  for  women  their 
individual  public  rights  ;  to  remove  from  these  all  previ- 


Appendix,  229 

ous  restriction  ;  but  that  legislators  still  obstinately  and 
justly  refuse  the  concession  of  political  rights.  But  fifty 
years  ago  these  legal  and  other  public  rights  were  every- 
where refused  with  the  same  obstinacy,  and  with  exactly 
the  same  arguments. 

No  social  sphere  is  more  remote  from  political  life 
than  that  of  medicine  ;  and  none,  it  might  be  imagined, 
more  appropriate  to  women.  Yet,  in  all  the  European 
countries  of  two  hemispheres,  language  was  racked  to 
find  words,  and  science  tortured  to  find  arguments  suf- 
ficiently abusive  to  condemn  the  proposal  to  allow  women 
to  minister  to  children  and  to  the  sick  of  their  own  sex. 
We  are  perfectly  well  aware  that  industrial  and  profes- 
sional competition  are  entirely  different  matters  from 
Popular  Sovereignty.  But  when  we  find  the  same  instincts 
aroused,  the  same  opposition  excited,  the  same  argu- 
ments advanced,  and  the  same  determination  manifested, 
by  trades  unions  to  exclude  women  from  trades  ;  by 
learned  societies  to  exclude  them  from  professions  ;  by 
universities  to  exclude  them  from  learning ;  and  by 
voters  to  exclude  them  from  the  polls,  we  cannot  avoid 
asking  whether  the  difference  in  the  cases  is  not  balanced 
by  the  identity  in  the  mental  attitude  of  the  opponents. 

The  time  to  press  the  demand  for  a  right  is  that  when 
some  one  has  been  found  to  voice  the  demand.  Since 
1848  there  have  not  been  lacking  women — women  like 
Mrs.  Stanton  and  Lucy  Stone — who  passed  from  aboli- 
tion conventions  to  the  Legislatures  of  their  own  States, 
there  to  urge  the  claims  of  equal  suffrage.  There  have 
not  been  lacking  women  who  have  worked  as  persist- 
ently,— and,  in  comparison  with  the  opportunities 
afforded,  as  greatly, — for  the  enfranchisement  of  their 


230  Appendix, 

sex,  as  O'Connell  worked  for  the  liberties  of  Ireland,  or 
Mazzini  for  those  of  Italy. 

All  the  reforms  in  the  legal  position  of  women,  and 
much  of  their  educational  advancement,  have  been  due 
to  the  impulse  given  by  the  women  who  were  working 
for  the  suffrage  ;  and  to  them  also  is  indirectly  due 
much  of  the  industrial  emancipation. 

Still,  all  women  do  not  demand  the  suffrage.  AVe  are 
sometimes  told  that  the  thousands  of  women  who  do 
want  the  suffrage  must  wait  until  those  who  are  now 
indifferent,  or  even  hostile,  can  be  converted  from  their 
position. 

Gentlemen,  we  declare  that  theory  is  preposterous.  It 
is  true  that  the  exercise  of  an  independent  sovereignty 
necessitates  the  demonstration  of  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  independence.  A  rebel  state  that  cannot 
break  its  own  blockade  may  not  call  upon  a  foreign 
power  to  move  from  its  neutrality  to  do  so.  But  the 
demand  for  equal  suffrage  is  in  nowise  analogous  to  a 
claim  for  independent  sovereignty.  It  is  rather  analo- 
gous to  the  claim  to  the  protection  of  existing  laws, 
which  any  group  of  people,  or  even  a  single  person  may 
make,  who  believes  himself  to  have  been  wronged  in 
sentiment,  person,  or  property.  Claims  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  existing  laws,  for  the  application  to  new  cases 
of  principles  embodied  in  previous  laws,  for  the  amend- 
ment of  existing  institutions,  are  never  preferred  by  the 
whole  community,  or  an  entire  class,  or  the  majority  of 
a  class,  or  even  by  a  large  minority.  The  bugbear  that 
women  in  voting  would  always  band  together  as  a  class, 
should  be  sufficiently  dissipated  by  the  fact  that  even 
now,  when  a  most  distinctly  class  issue  is  presented — 


Appendix,  231 

since  it  affects  the  disabilities  of  all  women, — women  are 
not  a  unit  in  their  opinion  upon  it.  So  great  is  the  men- 
tal isolation  engendered  in  a  class  politically  non-exis- 
tent, that  many  women  profess  even  now  never  to  have 
thought  of  the  franchise.  Others,  educated  in  a  lifetime 
of  indifference  to  public  affairs,  remain  absolutely  indif- 
ferent. Others,  accustomed  to  defer  to  masculine  opin- 
ion, submit  at  the  first  breath  of  ridicule  from  masculine 
friends.  Others,  believing  themselves  independent 
thinkers,  yet  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  first  sophism  spread 
for  innocent  and  unwary  feet.  Others,  sincerely 
alarmed  at  any  innovation  of  existing  order,  content 
with  their  own  lives  and  with  things  as  they  are,  shrink 
from  the  suggestion  of  change,  and  dread  the  unknown. 
Others,  with  the  instinct  for  public  activities  and  intel- 
lectual interests  already  satisfied,  do  not  imagine  how 
political  privilege  could  improve  their  own  situation, 
and  fail  to  inquire  whether  it  could  improve  that  of 
other  women.  Others  are  not  ashamed  to  feel  and  ex- 
press all  the  concentrated  bitterness  of  aversion  to  equal 
rights,  establishing  common  bonds  between  themselves 
and  social  inferiors,  which  privileged  classes  have  always 
expressed  when  called  upon  to  extend,  to  share  the  Sov- 
ereignty. Men  have  resisted  the  demand  for  the  en- 
franchisement of  other  men  ;  it  is  no  miracle,  therefore, 
\that  women  resist  a  similar  demand  for  women. 

There  have  always  been  found  individuals  ready  to 
uphold  the  claims  of  a  social  class  to  which  they  either 
belonged  or  wished  to  be  thought  to  belong,  and  this 
even  at  the  expense  of  their  own  permanent  interests. 
Professional  men  were  found  in  France  to  uphold 
Guizot  in  refusing  a  vote  to  the  professions.     The  poor 


232  Appendix, 

white  laborers  of  the  South  sustained  the  planters  in 
defending  slavery,  the  institution  which  condemned 
labor  to  ignominy. 

We  believe  that  the  suffrage  is  in  the  ultimate  interests 
of  all  women,  as  it  has  been  of  all  men  ;  but  we  do  not 
expect  all  women,  just  now,  to  see  this.  If  they  did  so 
even  now,  after  fifty  years'  discussion,  the  benumbing 
mental  effect  of  political  non-existence  would  be  less 
demonstrated  than  it  is. 

The  opposition  to  initiative  is  neither  unprecedented 
nor  inexplicable,  nor  of  any  special  significance.  Such 
opposition  necessarily  disappears  with  the  necessity  for 
initiative.  We  have  never  doubted  the  natural  conserva- 
tism of  women  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  have  insisted  upon 
it ;  and  the  marvel  is,  that  in  the  teeth  of  this  immense 
conservative  instinct  and  training,  so  many  thousands  of 
women  do  now  demand  the  apparent  innovation  of  the 
ballot.  But  similarly  the  Church,  which  fifty  years  ago 
was  a  unit  in  denouncing  the  public  work  of  women — 
even  for  the  slave, — is  now  divided  in  its  counsels.  If,  in 
this  Capitol  of  the  State,  the  Church  frowns  on  our  claim, 
in  the  metropolis,  in  New  York,  this  claim  has  received 
the  eloquent  and  outspoken  support  of  the  clergy  of  all 
denominations,  and  few  have  openly  opposed  us. 

The  unequal  feeling  among  women  and  their  spiritual 
advisers  in  regard  to  the  franchise,  would  have  this  effect 
— that  enfranchisement,  though  sudden  in  its  enactment, 
would  be  gradual  in  its  operation.  Enfranchisement  is 
not  a  conscription,  a  draft.  Voting  is  not  compulsory 
upon  men,  nor  has  any  one  at  present  proposed  to  make 
it  so.  Evidently,  therefore,  it  is  absurd  to  imagine  that 
the  duty  of  the  vote  would  be  compulsory  upon  women. 


Appendix,   ■  233 

The  possession  of  the  suffrage  is  needed  to  complete  the 
education  for  the  suffrage.  The  enfranchisement  con- 
fers an  opportunity.  Those  who  are  already  prepared, 
would  embrace  this  at  once  ;  those  who  were  not  would 
delay  until,  by  slow  degrees,  their  souls  had  warmed  to 
the  temperature  of  the  time. 

But  suppose,  it  is  urged,  that  the  votes  of  some  women, 
ignorant,  weak,  and  intrinsically  indifferent  unless  in- 
fluenced by  hope  of  private  gain,  were  bought  up  by  the 
leaders  of  a  party,  who  would  thus  secure  an  unfair  ad- 
vantage over  the  other  party  whose  women  declined  to 
vote  ?  The  first  remedy  is  simple,  and  would  then  be  near 
at  hand  :  call  out  the  vote  of  such  other  women.  Indif- 
ference would  be  converted  into  enthusiasm,  so  soon  as 
a  practical  issue  were  to  be  met.  And  such  issues,  by 
our  annual  elections,  are  not  raised  oftener  than  once  a 
year.  The  second  remedy  is  also  near  at  hand,  or  rather 
the  necessity  for  it  is,  and  is  the  urgent  question  of  the 
hour,  and  before  this  very  Convention,  this  very  Com- 
mittee. Render  corrupt  voting  impossible  :  prevent,  for 
the  salvation  of  the  Republic,  the  purchase  of  the  venal 
ballot  !  Though  it  be  secretly  whispered,  it  dare  not  be 
openly  affirmed  and  recorded  in  the  legislation  of  the 
State,  that  a  demand  for  franchise  was  refused  because 
corruption  at  the  polls  had  become  a  recognized,  a  per- 
manently tolerated  institution  ! 

Gentlemen,  we  commend  our  great  question  to  your  most 
serious,  earnest,  and  thoughtful  deliberation.  We  refuse 
to  believe,  as  it  has  been  basely  reported  to  us,  that  the 
members  of  this  Convention  of  this  committee  have  come 
to  this  deliberation  with  minds  already  prejudiced,  or 
irreversibly  set  in  one  direction.     The  mental  attitude 


2  34  •  Appendix, 

which  could  be  successfully  challenged  at  the  jury  panel 
drawn  to  decide  the  pettiest  wrong  of  the  humblest  citizen, 
cannot  be  that  which  is  assumed,  which  is  openly  paraded 
by  those  to  whom  is  committed  the  great  rights  of  so 
many  thousands,  who  are  not  the  humblest.  It  is  im- 
possible that  you  should  toss  aside  our  claim,  as  the  mere 
whim  of  a  few  irresponsible  cranks,  when  already  the 
petitions  in  its  support  number  over  289,000  names. 
When  were  such  petitions  ever  before  presented  in  this 
Assembly  Chamber  ?  This  is  not  a  question  like  that  of  the 
Prohibition  proposal,  obviously  unfit  for  place  in  a  dis- 
cussion on  constitutional  reform.  Questions  concerning 
the  electorate  belong  here,  and  belong  nowhere  else,  for 
they  concern  the  fundamental  organic  law.  Do  not  give 
to  this  question  less  thought  than  has  been  elsewhere 
bestowed  upon  proposals  to  extend  the  franchise.  You 
are  not  obliged  to  thread  the  imbecile  intricacies  that 
clogged  the  English  Reform  Bills  :  in  our  more  fortunate 
country,  the  problem  may  be  worked  out  on  broad  and 
simple  lines.  And  in  seeking  the  suffrage  for  women,  we 
do  not  propose  to  lower  the  franchise  ;  we  are  asking  for 
lateral,  not  vertical  extension  ;  we  shall  not  even  oppose 
such  restrictions  on  the  franchise  as  more  extended  ex- 
perience may  decide  to  be  suitable  ;  we  only  demand 
that  such  restriction  be  placed  on  some  other  basis  than 
that  of  sex. 

This  is  a  question  for  American  men  to  settle  with 
American  women,  and  on  American  principles.  We 
pray  you,  therefore,  do  not  allow  the  issue  to  be  confused 
by  any  foreign  sentimentalism,  by  any  mediaeval  and 
inherited  prejudice,  out  of  consonance  with  the  well 
established  social  polity  of  this  State. 


Appendix.  235 

We  pray  you,  further,  do  not  allow  your  decisions  to  be 
complicated  by  calculations  of  supposed  party  interest. 
This  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  party  question,  for  the 
women  whom  you  may  help  to  enfranchise,  will  belong 
to  no  separate  party.  Whatever  the  independence  of 
their  individual  judgment  on  individual  questions,  and 
which  is  to  be  desired,  their  party  affiliations  will  neces- 
sarily be  those  of  their  fathers,  brothers,  and  husbands. 
They  do  not  wish  to  enter  political  life  pledged  by  ties 
of  inconvenient  gratitude  to  any  one  party.  Rather,  free 
from  entangling  alliances,  they  aim  to  secure  the  open- 
hearted  and  generous  support  of  the  best,  the  most 
far-sighted,  the  most  patriotic  among  every  party  now 
represented  in  the  State. 

Finally,  gentlemen,  we  are  aware  that  with  you  does 
not  rest  the  final  responsibility  of  this  great  question.  It 
is,  indeed,  a  question  too  momentous  to  be  decided  by  a 
body  of  two  hundred  men,  however  wise,  and  learned, 
and  patriotic  ;  you  do  not  assume  to  so  decide  it ;  your 
mandate  is  not  entrusted  to  you  for  that  purpose. 

Qualifications  for  the  franchise,  for  the  dignity  of  full 
citizenship,  for  a  right  to  share  in  the  Sovereignty,  can 
only  be  decided  by  the  whole  people  who  are  already 
Sovereign.  Bring  this  question,  we  entreat  you,  before 
them  ;  let  it  be  discussed  for  the  next  five  months,  not 
only  in  your  councils,  but  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  State — in  its  cities,  its  villages,  its  hamlets, 
its  farms.  Let  it  be  discussed  in  families  ;  let  the  hus- 
band inquire  of  the  wife,  and  the  son  of  the  mother,  and 
the  brother  of  the  sister,  how  they  would  prefer  the  vote 
to  be  cast,  whether  for  or  against  this  amendment.  Then 
only  can  be  fully  known  the  deliberate  opinions,  at  this 


236  Appendix, 

time,  of  the  voters  of  the  State,  and  of  the  women  also. 
To  submit  this  question  to  the  people,  does  not  irrevoca- 
bly engage  the  responsibility  of  the  Convention.  To 
refuse  to  submit  it,  is  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  de- 
ciding the  whole  question  without  the  vote  of  the  people. 
We  are  aware  that  in  1867  this  question  was  buried  by 
an  adverse  Convention  ;  but  we  also  remember  that  the 
people  subsequently  buried  all  the  work  of  the  entire 
Convention  at  the  polls. 

Should  in  November  a  popular  vote  be  taken,  then, 
whether  the  decision  prove  favorable,  as  in  Wyoming  and 
Colorado,  or  adverse,  as  in  Rhode  Island  and  South 
Dakota,  we  shall  bow,  as  is  inevitable,  to  the  popular 
will  ;  we  shall  withdraw,  and  bide  our  time  for  another 
twenty  years,  when  once  more  we,  or  our  survivors  or 
our  successors,  will  present  themselves  before  a  new 
Constitutional  Convention,  to  prefer — and  then  success- 
fully— our  claim.  _ 

M.  P.  J. 


tETURN 


dRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

202  Main  Library 


OAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 


ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1 -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 

6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  br.mging  books  to  Circulation  Desk 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  date 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


JIK^? 


SANTA  BARBjOU 


HAR  7  A  1998 


FPBOa20)6 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  12/80        BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


®s 


LD  21A-60m-7.'66 
(G4-427sl0)476B 


W'T^'"^ 


iKCrctK 


-m^\  \]  i;    i'Jgil 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


U.  C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


QUESTIONS    OF 


AUTHOR  INDE^ 
"QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY"  SERIES. 


CD^77fi^lD^ 


Alexander,  E.  P.,  No.  36 
Allen,  J.  H..  No.  53 
Atkinson,  E.,  No.  40 
Bagehot,  W.,  No.  28 
Baker,  C.  W„  No.  59 
Blair,  L.  H.,  No.  35 
Bonham,  J.  M.,   No    61 
Bourne,  E.  G.,  No.  24 
Bowker,  R.  R.,  No.  10 
Bruce,  P.  A.,  No.  57 
Cleveland,  G.,  No.  48 
Codman,  J.,  No.  64 
CovvperthwajK ""    H 
Dabney,  'W  /  \^ 

DonneJ 


Tl] 

Foulke,  W.  D.,  No.  43 
Giffen,  R.,  No.  20 
Hall,  B.,  No.  71 
Hitchcock,  H.,  No.  37 


7^ 


Jacobi 

M.  P.,  No.  80 

Jones, 

W.  H.,  No.  39 

Juglar 

C,  No.  75 

Lawton,  Q.JN.,  No.  25 

Lowell 

J^   .  Nos.  13,  76 

^y^ 

r    ,    No.  44 

.-7/ 

•  ,  No.  50 

// 

No.  42 

/ 

No.  66  • 

/ 

J.,  No.  52 

H.,  No.  67 

i^ 

S.,  No.  77 

.,  No.  49 

5  {\  • ' 

.,  Nos.  9,  30,  73 

/iJUl 

m.  P.,  No.  65 

.  J.,  No.  63 

r-  . 

R.  H.,  No.  26 

.es 

A.  P.,  No.  79 

jcorey 

M..  No.  niS 

72 

,  Nos.  47,  74 

'•  Tax- 

Payer,"  No.  55 

Tyler, 

L.  G.,  Nov  68 

Wells, 

D.  A.,  Nos.  3,   54,  64,  71 

Winn, 

H.,  No.  46 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  Publishers. 


i 


NEW    YORK  : 

27  &  29  West  Twenty-third  St. 


tomroN  : 
24  Bedford  Street,  Strand 


\^ 


